The upshot is, Exhibit A never happened. It was a story. The guy who played the part of “Tom Johnson” made it up. He has apologized to Jerry via email, and says he will apologize to other people soon.

So that’s that. The “new atheists are evil and Exhibit A may have happened” crowd are wrong, and we can stop arguing about it.

There’s another thing.

“Tom Johnson” (hereafter “TJ”) remains anonymous, though his identity is apparently known by Mooney, Jean Kazez, and others. For a few weeks I have known it as well, as I am friends with some of the principals in this case. In return for my promise not to reveal TJ’s real name, I have been party to some of the details of the situation presented as “Exhibit A.” I have also questioned the other person who was supposedly involved in that “conservation event.” I have spoken to TJ’s advisor (Johnson is a graduate student at a university in the South), and have learned more of the details from that person. TJ has apologized to me by email for his actions, and says he will be apologizing to others soon. His advisor and his university are looking at his actions to see if any formal academic transgressions occurred. [emphasis added]

He’s being held accountable, so we don’t need to hold him accountable. So that’s that. Excellent. I wanted him to be held accountable in some way, if only to make it more difficult or risky for him to do it again, but I did not want to out him. I wasn’t baying for blood; I wanted accountability for someone who called me a liar and a useless putrid twat. I do not think that makes me a medieval witch-hunter baying for blood. I’m glad we have that straight.

I wasn’t baying for blood; I wanted accountability for someone who called me a liar and a useless putrid twat. I do not think that makes me a medieval witch-hunter baying for blood.

You’d think that, wouldn’t you, but we’re all living in New Atheist Cuckooland, and M**ney the Accomadator will soon show how we’re wrong, and how we’ve now irreparably destroyed the career of a fine, upstanding, young, accomodationist scientist.

There is no reason to assume that turning Tom Johnson into his academic adviser will hold Johnson accountable. Johnson’s elaborate charade was against the New Atheists in general, some in particular, and the public at large, not his school. There is no reason to assume that he violated any academic policy, nor that if he did that he will be punished for it.

And even if his school does punish him that will not hold him accountable to those he manipulated. So long as Johnson’s name is known only to a select few, he will be free transgress again as if for the first time, especially if people like Hitch claim that it would be unreasonable for even his name to be known since having his Machiavellian plan fail without any accountability means he has been through “hell”–a definition of hell I’m unfamiliar with.

How many times has Tom Johnson does this before? How many times will he do it again and get away with it? If people are always so quick to defend the guilty, to keep the name of the guilty party secret, then Johnson is free repeat his campaign of deception and smears over and over again without consequence. And if caught, his scheme will look like first offense. Which is why this should not be considered over and why people should not be so quick to protect the identity of self-admittedly guilty serial liars, ones who’s confessions are, themselves, lies, as is the case with Tom Johnson.

And even if his school does punish him that will not hold him accountable to those he manipulated.

Um – yes; that’s how these things work. It’s the same with actual crimes. The victims don’t get to do the punishing themselves. I have no desire to bolt TJ into a naughty chair and pinch him until he howls. He’s a grad student, and his university is investigating his actions. That’s a real world consequence. It’s enough.

Yes, the fact that Mooney’s not-so-mea-culpa didn’t include any investigation into whether what he posted was actually true, but rather the claim that it could be true, in spite of there being no reason to believe that it was, shows that Mooney had no sincere interest in the truth of the matter–and likely a conscious and deliberate aversion to the truth, such that he either avoided any investigation or withheld any facts that didn’t support his position. That Coyne, a “mere” author and biologist, could so readily get at the facts shows that there is absolutely no excuse for Mooney’s journalist and ethical lapses, not when he first promulgated the false story, not when he claimed to have vetted it while excoriating its critics, and not when he claimed to distance himself from the story but made no effort to establish the actual facts.

Mooney’s credibility and ethics as a journalist are now more in question than ever. And I think I was right in saying that more facts about Tom Johnson served not to put the emphasis on Johnson but on Mooney, who’s ethical lapses are now all but tangible.

I think I’d have said it sounded as if it could be true, I’ve certainly heard that kind of talk in and around universities, during Q&A periods, coming out of people who teach at universities.

Just so we’re clear, the behavior in question is this:

make a point […] to mock the religious to their face, shout forced laughter at them, and call them “stupid,” “ignorant” and the like

Anthony, are you saying that during Q&A periods at universities, you’ve seen educators mock the religious to their faces, shout forced laughter at them, and call them stupid or ignorant? Or are you saying that you’ve heard people talking amongst themselves deride the religious? Because those are two very different actions. So, for clarification, is what you’ve seen more along the lines of “those people are idiots”, or is it really in the “you, sir, are an idiot” vein?

Um – yes; that’s how these things work. It’s the same with actual crimes. The victims don’t get to do the punishing themselves.

Who asked for punishment, especially from his school? Not I, IIRC. I have no reason to assume he has violated any academic polices. He never publicly mentioned his school and I don’t see this as necessarily a violation against his school. I’ve only asked for his name to be public so that we can all double check what he says, and so that he can’t do this over and over again without any accountability. And you still haven’t said how he’ll be held “accountable” to the public he fooled if his name stays secret and he’s violated no school rules. Turning his name into someone != being held accountable.

I have no desire to bolt TJ into a naughty chair and pinch him until he howls.

Non sequitr straw man. Nobody has asked for anything of the sort. Revealing his name so he can be held accountable to the public, and so that he can’t continue to do similar frauds with the same impunity that continued anonymity would grant, is not in any way similar to the straw man you propose.

Scote, could you possibly dial down the belligerence a little? TJ is not my responsibility or my fault, so it is not my responsibility to insist that his identity be revealed. I have a lot of reasons for not wanting to insist on that, most or all of which I’ve stated here. I don’t want to go on being badgered about it forever.

I find it telling that yesterday, Chris Mooney jumped on the opportunity to warn PZ Myers against outing Tom Johnson, on the flimsy basis of one comment he made on the previous thread, but never got around to apologize for jumping to conclusions in his “Exhibit A” post. And he even linked to the comment on this blog, while he still bans Ophelia from posting at the Intersection.

While I do try to argue strongly, I don’t think I’m being belligerent. And I don’t accept persistence or consistency as equaling belligerence. Granted, my perception could be biased, or yours could. Or we both could be biased in this regard.

While I’m certain I’m not as good a writer as you are I do get the feeling that when I argue as forcefully to you as you sometimes do to others that I push some buttons, the kind that sometimes get pushed when two people are two much alike in style. I don’t know if there is any validity to my hypothesis, I will put it out there for you to consider, and I do so because I really don’t feel my posts are belligerent, so I’m mystified by your contention that they are and I’m looking for reasons why that could be. I can’t help but think that the reaction I engender from you is entirely out of proportion to the objective content of my posts.

Now that the evidentiary straw that Mooney was so desperately clutching at has finally given way under the strain of persistent, reasoned examination, will he now finally admit that he has no evidence to support his prejudiced views of vocal atheists?

If it happens [“Tom” gets outed], there may also be a need to say more about “Tom’s” original story–even though, as I’ve already observed, there is no reason to believe it any longer.

Except that he also observed “it might still be accurate,” with TB and Jean backing him up. We are told that Jean and TB are in possession of secret details which somehow make the story clearer. But then why did Mooney rebuff requests to disclose these details to a neutral party?

Well, it does seem that Mooney was deliberately bluffing, making vague, supposedly knowing insinuations to make it seem that he was secretly right all along, even though he couldn’t reveal that secret knowledge in public. Perhaps he meant the fact that a “conservation event” really did happen, or that “Tom Johnson” really is a grad student? Whatever the case, I think that we can probably dispense with the idea that Mooney is an honest broker. It seems to me that he is now passing over into territory where his biases may have turned to outright, pre-meditated mendacity. But that is just my opinion based on what he has been saying and doing.

Who knows. Kazez is still at it – stonewalling Athena Andreadis’s questions about what corroboration Mooney had for TJ’s story by saying she has Secret Information that of course she can’t possibly divulge. Yes and Joe McCarthy had A Little List. Honestly…

I posted this to Chris M, because he seemed to think there wasn’t much left to say. I think that since my post is critical of him, and it mentions the name Ophelia Benson, it won’t see the light of day on Mooney’s blog. For the record, here it is:

“There are some things for you to say.

You could apologise for choosing to promote a malicious lie, so this guy could slander “new atheists”.

You could apologise to Ophelia Benson, who has reason to be somewhat offended about being called an “useless putrid twat” by that malicious liar whose cause you took up. You highlighted him, to slander “New Atheists”, remember? You are not the victim here.

You could apologise to Ophelia Benson, who was slandered as a liar on your blog, while you prevented her from commenting or responding.

You could say, “Sorry, I’ve been a bit of a jerk, and one of the things I’ll do, to prevent me from continuing in this jerkish manner, is to unban my critics on this, who were right all along. Starting with Ophelia Benson.”

I’m sorry, but I observe that your reputation is shrinking to a state not too dissimilar to that malicious liar whose work you so appreciated, highlighted and encouraged. I observe you’re at best a laughing stock, and that many people, including me, think worse of you than that you’re merely a fool.

But a genuine apology, and restoration of comment rights to your critics, would be your only possible step back. That’s my suggestion on what you could say.

At least some consequence is happening. A university investigation is harrowing enough, possibly. Some sort of consequence that shows the internet is a part of the real world, behaviour and reputations count and this is not some strange fictional role-playing party via computers. At the day job where I manage personnel, I remind complainants that if a fellow employee has been found to have conducted themselves in a reprehensible manner, the complainant does not necessarily get to be privy to the reprimand. Same goes for TJ. It’s enough to know it’s being addressed.

Scote, this could well be a disciplinary offence. It depends on whether he used an email account provided by his university. Universities provide email accounts on very strict conditions as to how they’ll be used, and it looks to me as if TJ has breached the typical conditions that I’ve seen. However, that’s a matter for the university. The main thing is that Jerry has now cleared the air.

It’s too much to expect that Mooney will now apologise for having made a horrible misjudgment, or that people like Jean Kazez and even John Wilkins (who should really know better) will retract their defences of his initial judgment. But they should.

The situation now looks pretty clear. The events did not take place; nothing at all like them took place; if there was any kernel of truth at all, it related to events wildly remote from the story that was told; the story was always totally implausible on its face, as well as uncorroborated; various people said this to Chris Mooney at the time, but he took no real notice; and he was obviously blinded by his biases, which led him to a very serious misreading of the intentions and impact of the “New Atheists”. It’d be nice if Chris thought about it and acknowledged all this, but so far he’s been too proud to do so. How about it, Chris?

At least some consequence is happening. A university investigation is harrowing enough, possibly. Some sort of consequence that shows the internet is a part of the real world, behaviour and reputations count and this is not some strange fictional role-playing party via computers…Same goes for TJ. It’s enough to know it’s being addressed.

Well, as much as I have been as staunch an advocate for “Tom Johnson” to be publicly identified so that he may be accountable for his actions I’m wary of him facing official adjudication or punishment by his school. Just because he goes to a school doesn’t mean they have a duty or a right to punish him for actions that take place out of the school setting. And I say this because I’ve argued for people’s rights to be free of school interference in their outside life, from the wrongly decided “Bong Hits for Jesus” case to the BYU Missionary beefcake calendar case. And even though I think “Tom Johnson” is a mendacious serial liar who needs to be held accountable for his actions I must remain consistent in my principles and say that his case can be said to have some similarities to the ones I’ve mentioned, though not entirely.

Let me echo what I said over at Why Evolution is true and ask why should the school adjudicate Tom Johnson for his internet lies? He never mentioned the school publicly. There is no evidence that he has cheated or done anything wrong academically in school.

While I agree that “Tom Johnson” has lied and committed ethical breaches on the internet, so far as I know they have all been outside of school. I’m generally against schools claiming the power to adjudicate ethics violations that occur outside of school. “Tom Johnson” has not, so far as we know, been convicted by civil authorities of any crime, so I’m wary of the school having any power to punish him for this, just as I’d be wary of his boss doing the same, or his dorm adviser, or anybody else not directly affected.

I think Tom Johnson is an ass, and I’ve argued strongly and steadfastly that we should all know his real name so that he will be personally accountable for this and future actions, but without a definite academic connection in this issue, I’m reluctant to believe that ethical lapses that aren’t convictions or aren’t even actionable by civil authorities and that happen outside of school should be adjudicated by the school.

I thought it was wrong for BYU to withhold the degree of a man who created a tame calendar of shirtless, hunky Mormon missionaries. I thought it was wrong for a school to withhold the educational degree of a female student when somebody posted a photo of her holding an **opaque** plastic cup because it might have contained alcohol. And I’m wary of “Tom Johnson’s” non-academic transgressions be adjudicated by his school based on the same principles. I’m not ruling the possibility out. We don’t know the extent of what he has or hasn’t done. So he very well may merit academic adjudication, but at the moment I have no certain knowledge that would merit official academic sanction. And I’m wary of thinking that schools should be too entangled with students outside lives without clear, convincing and more than sufficient justification.

Something I posted over at Socktastic Funsock Central but almost guarantee won’t make it through:

Anthony McCarthy wrote:

Makes you wonder how they’d deal with a serious, scholarly take down of their movement. Not too well, obviously.

Snort. Therein lies the problem, Anthony – such things only exist in your imagination, just like they did in ‘Tom Johnson’s’. But hey, don’t let reality get in the way of your prejudices – you can always depend on your ‘other ways of knowing’ [jazz hands!] to convince yourself that there’s something wrong with advocating for atheism.

McCarthy’s probably the worst, most intellectually dishonest turd floating in that particular toilet bowl – he claims to be an atheist but treats all religious claims with a weird kind of reverence; if he is, in reality, an atheist (though I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t, since he’s also a oft-demonstrated liar) he’s one of the seriously self-loathing variety.

But he posts his disingenuous bile knowing M&K love his obsequious fawning, pro-appeasement forelock-tugging and atheist-bashing rants and will let him say whatever he wants while protecting him from rebuttal.

Let me echo what I said over at Why Evolution is true and ask why should the school adjudicate Tom Johnson for his internet lies? He never mentioned the school publicly. There is no evidence that he has cheated or done anything wrong academically in school.

“TJ” got his school involved by mentioning a school prominently, and if “TJ” is ever outed, then so is the school. And due to his “confessions,” everything that went on at You’re Not Helping is associated with his school, as well. “TJ” set up those conditions, unilaterally. If I were on the staff, I certainly wouldn’t be happy about that forced association between the school and “TJ,” under the terms it was. That’s not to say that everything (or anything) he did is a punishable offense, but that’s up to the school, not you or me.

And for all we know, this is the latest in a long history of disciplinary problems for “TJ.” If he’s been on double-secret probation for prior misdeeds, I think the school should have every right to adjudicate this matter on their terms. Or, if you’re correct, and the school is fair, then they’ll be scratching out a whole bunch of his lies as beyond their jurisdiction and thus unactionable, so why would it bother you? Are you assuming that the school will be unfair?

TJ” got his school involved by mentioning a school prominently, and if “TJ” is ever outed, then so is the school.

What you mean is that, as I said, he never mentioned his school.

why would it bother you? Are you assuming that the school will be unfair?

As I’ve stated, I’m against the increasing encroachment of schools jurisdiction into our private lives, as with the 3 documentable cases I stated, “Bong Hits for Jesus,” BYU beefcake calendar and the “drunken” pirate with the opaque plastic cup. To be consistent with my position on those cases, I can’t and won’t generically argue that “Tom Johnson” should be considered differently unless there is a clear case of actual academic misconduct, as opposed to ethical breaches outside of school, and there is no evidence to date in our public internet record of such misconduct.

Ophelia, I just asked Kazez about it on her own blog, too (took me a while to remember where it was).

Scote, the outing of “TJ” is beyond his control, and therefore so is the guilt-by-association that could affect the school. This is why schools have an honor code to begin with, as far as I can tell: to avoid having to allow student behavior to give the school a black eye in PR-land.

In at least two of the three cases you mention, the schools stepped waaaaaaaaaaay over the bounds of what they could reasonably police. But none of those three cases were about students who actually lied, admitted lying, and may have even violated school network terns-of-use. The school certainly has a right to determine if “TJ” ever used the school’s network to make defamatory and/or harassing statements, don’t you think?

That’s all that’s happening right now: an investigation. Would you deny the school that much?

True, my examples were not about cases where there was lying and deception, but you just said above that honor codes are to keep the school from getting **bad PR**, something for which no lying or unethical conduct is required, just controversy. So you are being inconsistent in your theory of what outside conduct school may reasonably govern.

Scote, it’s not up to me to define what conduct a school may reasonably govern. I’m not on the staff of any school. However, I understand that the “outside conduct” of a student can have physical, economic, legal and academic effects upon both the school itself and the other students, and those potential effect justify schools policing their students to some extent while off-campus. You seem to be arguing that no policing by the schools of off-campus activities should be tolerated, but if a student were to go to a KKK rally in a whole different state with a bullhorn and shout “Whatsamatta U says ‘death to whitey!'” I think it’d be appropriate to toss the idiot out on his ear.

I agree with you that the examples you presented were of schools that were far over-reaching the reasonable and appropriate limits, but that doesn’t mean either that all schools will do so or that the limit should always be at the border of school property. Reasonable people can disagree about what outside behaviors any particular school should be interested in, but I don’t think that saying “none at all” is reasonable.

“And isn’t this an implicit admission that no ’serious, scholarly take down’ exists?”

To continue the parallel with Breitbart, he was convinced the NAACP was racist and was looking for a video that would show how racist that organization is. Instead, the best he could do was post a heavily edited video that made it appear so. Likewise, Mooney really wants to prove how bad the New Atheists are, but the best he can find is a completely made-up story.

Jean Kazez replied to me, saying that yes, it would have been unreasonable for her to “report” “TJ” to his university, because (she says) “other universities” don’t require such things from their faculty. And she guesses that nothing “TJ” did was an honor code violation. And that she was told in confidence that “TJ’s” advisor knew, so she had to keep that quiet (even though I can’t see any downside to letting that secret out before now).

All of which (I’m supposed to think) explains why she was so insulting about it on July 11th. I guess.

I keep thinking how unfair this was to Jerry Coyne. The case involves defamation to some extent. Coyne spends much time investigating in order to clear people’s names, including his own. He succeeds. Mooney congratulates him on “a very good piece of work.”

Oedipus, that is something, isn’t it? The throwaway “there isn’t really much more to say” doesn’t really bode well, either.

By the way, do you recall whether “Anna K” was one of William’s socks? Just curious, because looking back at that original Dawkins-related thread from which ‘Exhibit A’ was plucked, the only person to respond to TJ’s comment was Anna K.

It seems to me that part of what you have a right to ask, in this case, is for an explanation. Why, you? Why did he feel like you specifically deserved to be named as the motive for the bad actors that were turned into Exhibit A?

This is the only interesting thing in the whole story, and we still don’t know it. If I was TJ’s advisor, and a person like you, came to me and said, look, you have a kid in your program who tells massive lies and trying to tear down my reputation, and I’d like a written apology that explains why he did it and why it was wrong.

Mooney isn’t backing down, he’s over there on the intersection, saying that just because Johnson is a liar, doesn’t mean that you are helping.

Take the guy seriously, don’t just throw him in the briar patch. This is exhibit A, lets have a look at it … my 02

Since Chris does not have evidence that New Atheist scientists are engaging in counter-productive attacks on religion, in the interest of intellectual honesty he should either:(1) Back up his hypothesis with actual, verifiable data of New Atheists being counter-productive; or,(2) Modify the original posts to make it clear that the anecdote was fake and that the assertion that New Atheists are being counter-productive is not backed up by any facts.

To which CM replied:

Autonomic, your post is reasonable up until the end. Obviously the story isn’t evidence of anything now, because it isn’t true.But that’s different from saying there’s no evidence or basis for thinking the New Atheism might be counterproductive. It’s a different, broader issue.

The guy is completely oblivious. I’m sorry, I know people (Ophelia) have been harmed by this and it might be hard to find the funny, but that……it’s so bizarre I can’t stop giggling. He just needs to add “And I have faith that some day soon I will find some evidence, trust me”

1. After months of relentless pressure to produce evidence to back up his prejudiced views he leaps on a story about vicious atheists and presents it with a flourish, “Aha! Exhibit A!”

2. Said story is an obvious fraud from the start but he defends it with zeal nonetheless.

3. Said story is unambiguously demonstrated to be a total fantasy, and all of a sudden:

Obviously the story isn’t evidence of anything now, because it isn’t true.But that’s different from saying there’s no evidence or basis for thinking the New Atheism might be counterproductive. It’s a different, broader issue.

So the choice is “evidence” or a “basis for thinking.”

In short, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence and whilst we’re waiting for actual evidence as opposed to fantasy, simple run-of-the-mill prejudice will suffice in the meantime as a “basis for thinking Atheism might be counterproductive.”

He just needs to add “And I have faith that some day soon I will find some evidence, trust me”

This reminds one of the great Ward Churchill, from an interview with a faculty committee investigating his academic dishonesty.

I’ve got this general understanding. You say, but can that general understanding be confirmed? Well, I’m looking to confirm it. I’m also looking for information, and I told you this at the outset, I’m looking to prove it’s true.

I was reading the chat between the unreasonably demanding Dave W and the ever-so-polite Jean Kazez at her blog and wandered around there and came across this pretty standard but somehow giggle-begging statement with respect to the current events:

Comment policy: sometimes I have to moderate. Be reasonable, be nice. If you wouldn’t say it to my face, don’t say it here. The whole idea that the blogosphere is some lawless combat zone is nonsense. We’re still in the real world. It’s just the means of communicating that’s new.

I think most people backed away slowly long ago, and then camped out on the edges of the field to watch the show. Up till now the show has mostly been: drama! drama! intricate plot! deceit! drama!

But then, like most bad actors, CM over emoted (weeks ago) and exposed his serious lack of technique. This turned his role into a complete parody of itself and transformed the show into a farce and the audience is now pointing and laughing. Or maybe that’s just me. It’s not, is it?

The situation now looks pretty clear. The events did not take place; nothing at all like them took place; if there was any kernel of truth at all, it related to events wildly remote from the story that was told; the story was always totally implausible on its face, as well as uncorroborated; various people said this to Chris Mooney at the time, but he took no real notice; and he was obviously blinded by his biases, which led him to a very serious misreading of the intentions and impact of the “New Atheists”. It’d be nice if Chris thought about it and acknowledged all this, but so far he’s been too proud to do so. How about it, Chris?

You know, in the Southern States they used to lynch black men. Between 1896 and 1922 at least 3,500 black men were lynched. The number one excuse was “threats to/attacks upon white women.” That is, said black man was either alleged to be a threat to commit (regardless of evidence) or was blamed to have committed (regardless of evidence) some type of sexual assault. This, of course, was enculturated with the intentional stereotyping of blacks who were portrayed as hot-blooded, uncontrollable-rapist sex-fiends.

I think the culmination of this particular idiotic train of thought sparked the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 in which the segregated afro-American area was destroyed and scores of people died. All because a black man tripped and bumped into a white girl in the elevator.

Well, that’s what Mooney does… Oh, not as directly vile. But that is what he does when he slanders Athiests with false charges. And I bet he doesn’t even realize it. Or, if he does, he doesn’t care. He’s clearly made up his mind that any atheist with an opinion needs to get to the back of the bus.

<blockquote>By the way, do you recall whether “Anna K” was one of William’s socks? Just curious, because looking back at that original Dawkins-related thread from which ‘Exhibit A’ was plucked, the only person to respond to TJ’s comment was Anna K.</blockquote>

And, if I remember correctly, TJ gave a shout out to Anna K explicitly referencing her post and that was a trademark of “William’s” sock puppets, they’d always reference each other and by name.

Does anyone think of the speech “The Problem with Atheism” by Harris a few years ago?

I’m not simply suggesting that this TJ thing will never happen if the term atheism is not embraced so openly by many (not intended to be vague!). In fact, the heart of this scandal is that one side of an issue (the compatibility between science and faith) is trying to smear the other side. It is never “friendly” people vs “militant/new” atheists, as any believer who can manage a little bit of critical thinking can see thru the lack of evidence in and the sheer implausibility of the event “chronicled” by TJ and then “exhibited” by CM.

What I’m trying to say is from Coyne’s latest post we see that at the end it is the side which is willing to side with reason and evidence prevails, not really the side who claims to represent the “orthodox” atheism.

I’ve made a couple of entirely reasonable posts over at the Intersocktion but they’ve yet to appear. Anyone know how long one can reasonably expect to be ‘held in moderation?’

One attempted defence caught my eye:

“There may have been problems with this particular “dataset” [Exhibit A], but the hypothesis that new atheism, as it’s been recently practiced, inspires people who are impatient about important details on certain subjects, and insensitive about the best ways to hold civil discourse, isn’t an unreasonable one.”

Not unlike religion – MC’s personal conviction that vocal atheists surely must be damaging science is enough in itself to justify endless screeds asserting just that.

Hahahahahaha – the comedy just keeps rolling in. Now Kazez’s faithful sidekick “amos” has it that “new atheists” are kind of sort of responsible for the war in Iraq and we’re also so stupid that we think TJ has done more harm than the war in Iraq did.

I wonder if the story came from comments made by atheist colleagues not to theists’ faces. I certainly say some things in private to people like my wife or atheist friends that I would not say in person to a theist — not out of cowardice, but out of courtesy. (Which is exactly what these liars are saying us NAs lack, ironically) In fact, an even more striking example: A co-worker of mine is a committed Christian, and we’ve had some very interesting and respectful discussions. He’s also read my blog, in which I am not particularly respectful even of moderate religion. And we’re both okay with that. Even someone who is an indirect target of some of the venting on my blog can understand that there is a difference between the kind of venting you do in the presence of like-minded (and like-frustrated) people vs. the kind of in-person conversation you have with someone with whom you disagree but respect.

TJ may have failed to grasp the difference, and thought that because his colleagues used very harsh and derisive language about theists in the company of other atheists, that it was therefore plausible that they would use the same language at conservation outreach events. A preposterous notion, of course — all humans modify their tone based on audience, that’s just part of being a social animal.

Now I’m not amused – Kazez told a flat untruth about me last night on Jerry’s blog. Just a plain old falsehood. I…I…I keep thinking we’ve hit bottom but then they find newer depths to sink to. It’s staggering.

You can keep repeating the opinion that NAs are rude and obnoxious but however strongly you hold that opinion it is not enough to support the assertion that “the NA movement” (or however you want to characterise it) has a deleterious affect on science communication.

Ah, Mooney finally let some comments through at his condesending “good work, Jerry” thread. (Not my comment though, I’m still banned outright (perhaps for managing to uosuǝq ɐıןǝɥdo into the comments past the filters…) In the comments, Mooney reassures us that it is still all about him:

Something more will be done with the disclaimers in due course. I still am pretty sure I want to post at least one more time, since the full story of my experience in all of this is not well understood (and some seem not to want to understand it, but surely some do).[emphasis added]

Well, Chris, we wouldn’t want you to break with tradition and just admit you were wrong and acted irresponsibly. By all means, please tell us more about your innocence and victimhood. :-p

I just have to love the passive voice. I like how Mooney says this as if it is all our fault for not knowing his story, or as if it is a grand tale of a noble and intrepid reporter, yet to be told. No way that Mooney could admit the reason we don’t know Mooney’s full story is because he has been deliberately evasive and cagey, writing multiple defensive threads that obfuscated his “experience in all of this” rather than clarifying it.

I think we can all agree that it really is all about Mooney, just not in the way he’s going to try to spin it.

My willingness to give Mooney the benefit of the doubt and check out his book is diminished by the (apparently undenied) fact that he relayed the Crackergate story without the context. I do not see how I can trust anything else in the book based on that. It’s just hugely dishonest.

The really sad part is that I imagine much of Mooney’s intended audience would be aghast at Crackergate even in context. It’s not just shocking dishonesty, it’s shocking and apparently purposeless dishonesty.

The reason I asked [if you’d read the book] is that it seems like people want me to reinvent the wheel–I’ve already made my arguments about the New Atheism in that book.

I admit, I haven’t read the book and I’ll further admit that I’m not likely too if (as James Sweet neatly points out) the Crackergate incident is any indication of its content.

That said, since it appears that the only attempt at responding to the multiple calls for evidence has been “Exhibit A,” I don’t think I’m too wide of the mark concluding that the book is simply a series of “It stands to reason” assertions.

Or am I missing something?

I’d post this directly in response to Mooney but I doubt it would get through, or if it did he’d probably just say, “Well read the book.”

Dave W. had just accused me of obstructing justice, and had asked me– And just how much do you have to gain by obstructing justice on behalf of a known liar? I can’t figure out your motivation at all.

You entirely accepted the presupposition of the question—that I was indeed trying to “obstruct justice”–and wrote this long discussion of my motivation, starting with his question:

And just how much do you have to gain by obstructing justice on behalf of a known liar? I can’t figure out your motivation at all.

My guess about the motivation is that it has to do with increasing hostility to “New” atheists. Mooney and the many many other demonizers of explicit atheists are having their effect, and hostility to us is indeed ratcheting up. At the same time, though, our obstinate determination not to be demonized and othered without a fight is also being entrenched. So we see new fissures and divisions, which perhaps make “William” in his fetid cave happy.

At any rate that’s my guess about the motivation. The idea is that Mooney is a victim of the “New” atheists, that he’s an honest well-meaning fella who has been maligned by a mob of ravening unreasonable anti-religionists. In this particular case I’m perhaps the worst of the lot, for being so persistent in trying to get Mooney to answer questions about his claims about “New” atheists, and then for taking exception to being banned from his blog for that, and for saying critical things about Mooney at my own place. I was late learning of William’s claim to be Tom Johnson, but I think I was the first to say “well then Mooney owes a lot of people an apology.” I think this made at least two people – JK being one – see red, and thus hasten to offer Mooney support and friendship.

That’s just a guess, but it fits the chronology, and it makes sense of some of the events and statements.

It’s not really relevant at the moment, but your speculations about my motivations and the chronology were not correct.

***

While we’re at it, I do think there’s an untruth about me in the comments above. You wrote—

If I remember correctly, “William” managed to “out” himself as being a student at the University of Alabama, and their student code of conduct doesn’t seem to rely on teachers needing to “figure out what to do.” That’s left to the judicial system they’ve put in place.

So even if you’re not willing to publicly expose “William,” you should let the school’s system function by reporting “William’s” conduct to them. If they decide that no sanction is needed, that “William’s” serial lying doesn’t adversely affect the reputation of the school and so doesn’t merit punishment, that’ll be fine. If he does get punished for these particular on-line incidents, I’m sure it will be minimal unless he’s already got a history of disciplinary problems.

He tells me that I should report the guy to the school’s judicial system. When I say I disagree, it’s perfectly consistent with the fact that I knew at the time that the advisor was in the know. (And no, I don’t think I owe it to anyone to share things I’ve been told in confidence–certainly not an anonymous commenter)

Posted on The Intersection, but it’s at least awaiting moderation so I don’t think I’ve been banned (haven’t really posted much since the original TJ kerfuffle a year ago anyway):

The reason I asked is that it seems like people want me to reinvent the wheel–I’ve already made my arguments about the New Atheism in that book.

Which brings us full circle into the current situation. Has any evidence yet been procured to support the “new atheists harm science education” meme? So far the only concrete Exhibit has been withdrawn and thoroughly discredited.

Also, James, I’ll note that what you heard about Chapter 8 of UA may not be fully correct. I have not read the whole book, and it’s been several months since I read the chapter in question (and I do not have the book, myself, and wouldn’t pay a dime for it if it would go to the author), but he does at least mention the existence of Webster Cooke (some people have asserted he does not). He does treat rather lightly the threats not only sent to Cooke but also to Myers, though (maybe even completely ignores the latter, I cannot recall offhand). But death threats were sent to Myers before he ever put nail to Eucharist, which goes ignored to make it seem like Myers is a raging bug-eyed lunatic attacking religion indiscriminately without aim or further goal.

Also, James, I’ll note that what you heard about Chapter 8 of UA may not be fully correct. I have not read the whole book, and it’s been several months since I read the chapter in question (and I do not have the book, myself, and wouldn’t pay a dime for it if it would go to the author), but he does at least mention the existence of Webster Cooke

Dammit. maybe I will have to read it just so I can be honest. I had thought that his omission of the context was undisputed, but perhaps I was misled.

James, no, the context was not totally omitted. I hope no one has claimed that! It was given, but not completely. The book says “…his actions outraged many Catholics, sparking a flurry of media coverage and even, apparently, some death threats.” It omits the campaign to get Webster Cooke expelled, and then when it gets to PZ, it fails to make clear that he was outraged at the threats to Cooke, as well as of course the unmentioned campaign to get him expelled. It makes him sound more pugnacious and arbitrary than that. “Myers was staggered and disgusted by all the hoopla over a ‘frackin cracker.'”

“Hoopla” is a trivializing word to use about death threats and a campaign to get a student kicked out of school. That’s typical of M&K – that kind of “framing.” We all do that, of course; I do it a lot; but some people do it more honestly than others.

Nothing I consider evidence. That’s why I drew up my list of questions. There is some handwaving in the direction of purported evidence, but it’s “X thinks” stuff. Literally. So and so at the university of so and so thinks.

There is some handwaving in the direction of purported evidence, but it’s “X thinks” stuff. Literally. So and so at the university of so and so thinks.

Well, even that appears to be more than he’s offering at the moment.

I can kind of understand his “read the book” response. If he thinks he’s made a convincing case already, surely it would be a bit irritating to repeat if for all us duffers who haven’t read it.

However, I would also have thought that the cost of a simple cut ‘n’ paste from his original manuscript would be far outweighed by the satisfaction of shutting up his irritating critics.

Something else that bothers me – if he’s genuinely convinced of his position, it shouldn’t be difficult to actually generate some data. He’s got friends at Templeton that would jump at the chance to fund a survey.

Yes but he shouldn’t even think he’s (they’ve) made a convincing case. He has no business thinking that. He should know the difference between bald assertion and making a case. This is part of what’s wrong with him: he apparently doesn’t, yet he has no hesitation about telling Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins and other people who are vastly more intelligent than he is, what they should be doing and writing and saying.

It’s really unfortunate because Crackergate is such an interesting case study in the “strident” tactics that Mooney so stridently decries. I don’t think one could really qualify PZ’s protest as an unqualified failure or an unqualified success. It was an action that (although there is evidence of neither of these) could quite plausibly cause moderates to be driven away from secularism, as well as open the eyes of other moderates to the absurdity of the whole situation. It quite possibly “rallied the troops” on both sides. Was it polarizing? Maybe. But not all actions that polarize are divisive in and of themselves; sometimes they are polarizing because they so vividly illustrate the issue under debate.

An honest treatment of Crackergate could be a good jumping off point for a discussion of the pros and cons of the “strident” approach. But no treatment of Crackergate could be honest without a heavy emphasis on the campaign to get Cooke expelled, because that was the central issue of the protest.

Anyway, the local library system does have a single copy, so I’ll be checking it out.

He has no business thinking that. He should know the difference between bald assertion and making a case. This is part of what’s wrong with him: he apparently doesn’t, yet he has no hesitation about telling Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins and other people who are vastly more intelligent than he is, what they should be doing and writing and saying.

Don’t forget the recent Jason Rosenhouse “backlash” brouhaha. Rosenhouse dared to post a little blurb saying, “Hey, these statistics don’t prove anything, but still, it’s hard to see an anti-atheist backlash here”, and Josh Rosenau wrote half-a-book about how those statistic don’t prove anything. (Thanks, we know) Talk about a double-standard.

what they should be doing and writing and saying.

Has he even been very specific on that? I suppose I should be quiet until I’ve read UA for myself, but from what I’ve read from Mooney, and what I’ve heard about the book, it sounds like he is pointing out all sorts of problems with current approaches to science education (which are often valid) but then failing to say what anybody should be doing differently. Pointing out that fundamentalists don’t respond well to The God Delusion, for example, is not an argument against writing TGD unless you have a suggestion that fundamentalists do respond well to…

Pointing out that fundamentalists don’t respond well to The God Delusion, for example, is not an argument against writing TGD unless you have a suggestion that fundamentalists do respond well to…

And even then, only if you’re writing it to turn fundamentalists. That’s another point Mooney & co. constantly ignore. It’s sad when the strident ones are the ones recognizing and calling for a diversity of approaches, while the “Pragmatists” (as Mooney seems to want to be called nowadays, although he’s self-identified as Accomodationist for quite some time) are the ones telling people trying anything other than the One True Approach to science outreach to shut up.

Not exactly. He did apologize to me personally, but he said nothing about sexism. I unkindly reminded him of “useless putrid twat” but he didn’t seize the opportunity.

It wouldn’t really matter if he did apologize. People who exhibit sociopathic behavior are perfectly able to mimic the appearance of ethical behavior, like apologies and contrition, but it means nothing to them other than a means to an end, and has no effect on their future actions. While we don’t if “Tom Johnson” is a sociopath, we do know that he is a veteran serial liar, so I’d say that almost no benefit can result from talking to him (cf Chris Mooney) rather than doing independent research about him. If he’s contacted you it is almost certainly because he hopes by doing so that he can manipulate you to his advantage.

In any case, “Pragmatist” is not a neutral term. Many of us would assert we are being pragmatic!

I of course agree. It was a callback to his complaint about the Accomodationist label (about which I agree for the most part with your assessment), and it’s odd since it really has even less information content in the current debates than Accomodationist. I’m unaware of any mainstream figures that have come out against pragmatism in furthering science outreach, at least on the atheist side.

Just wanted to point out that my 78 appears to have left moderation without being posted at The Intersection. They’re still trying to ignore that UA is still a lot of unsupported hearsay, looks like. So we’re left with the stunning “evidence” of preachers saying they think outspoken atheism makes it harder to get people to accept science, and nothing more.

Slightly off topic, but I’ve just been banned from Intersection. I tried to point out in the most recent thread that, despite their claims to the contrary, Mooney and Kirshenbaum never cite any social scientific evidence for their claims about new atheism and alienation. In response to a question.

Just posted this on Mooney’s thread, thought I’d put it here to make sure it sees the light of day…

From TB (quote from UA – see original thread for the full quote – can’t seem to make a link):

Insofar as the new atheism strives to reach beyond science’s limitations – boundaries that end at the natural world – and claims that it’s “scientific” to be an atheist, then it also seeks to turn science into an anti-religious doctrine.

Is that actually true? I don’t see New Atheists striving to do anything of the sort. This is a fairly explicit claim that New Atheists do ‘X’ without presenting any examples of ‘X.’ Something like, “Insofar as new atheism strives to turn children against their parents” would make a nice little couplet with a quote from a religious conservative saying, “If accepting evolution means I’m going to lose my kids then I reject it” but it wouldn’t wash without some kind of supporting evidence.At best, the idea that New Atheists – or the slightly more nebulous ‘new atheism’ – strives in such a manner and makes the explicit claim that “it’s scientific to be an atheist” is an impression, an opinion. An oft repeated opinion to which many assent but an opinion nonetheless.Using science to make a strong case for atheism is not the same thing as seeking “to turn science into an anti-religious doctrine.” Even giving the opinion credence, and allowing that such a project exists and that it might “vastly strengthen the claims of anti-science religious conservatives” let’s face it – if a religious conservative is already “anti-science” how much encouragement does he need to reject science?

TB is a moron. I wouldn’t worry about what he says – though I did briefly answer one of his comments over at The Intersection where he claims that “Johnson’s” story is not a fabrication! It contains all sorts of truths, he tells us, such as that such a university exists, such “conservation meetings” do happen, and so on. Of course, those were never the aspects of the story that were challenged as incredible. I could write a story about Martian monsters destroying Sydney, and by TB’s standards this would not be a fabrication because there really is such a place as Sydney.

I did wonder. He says he finds the quote from UA “compelling.” If he finds that compelling I’ve got some real estate deals I’d like him to look at.

Perhaps I’m being pessimistic, but I see this whole argument eventually going Mooney’s way. What he and others lack at the moment is solid evidence to support their assertions. There’s no evidence of otherwise science-friendly believers turning against science because of Coyne, Dawkins, et al. But it won’t be long before some otherwise moderate Christian group decides to change its mission statement. All it takes is one too many op-eds telling them how the New Atheists are striving, “to reach beyond science’s limitations” and claiming that, “it’s ‘scientific’ to be an atheist” and seeking to “turn science into an anti-religious doctrine.”

None of that need actually happen. The Mooneys just need to keep banging that drum.

That actually seems to be the defense now: that the Tom Johnson story might be true, just like it might be true Jean molests penguins. It might be true!

And, according to Intersocktion‘s number one fanboy and fawning Mooney backslapper, Anthony ‘will lie for woo’ McCarthy, if Jean reacts badly to that unsupported claim then it’s automatically as valid as if there were evidence for it – even though (to our knowledge) there’s not.

I guess he applies his ‘other ways of knowing’ [jazz hands!] to that as well.

It is a supernatural question whether or not there is any truth to TJ’s story. Science has nothing to say about the supernatural, so it is entirely reasonable to believe that there is a great deal of truth to TJ’s story. Have a nice day.

And anyway, “new atheists” don’t care about truth in the first place. Kazez says so.

It’s pretty obvious that the real issue here is not supposed failures of Mooney’s as a journalist. Who cares that much about the little gaffes of journalists (if this is one)? It’s the fact that he was putting a story out there that was unflattering to “the new atheists.” Obviously, that’s really what irks.

Oh obviously. Who cares about little itty bitty gaffes of journalists? Nobody! Except a few pedants and “activists” and pesky people like that. Journalists are supposed to entertain us, not tell us the truth. Obviously; duh. And all “new atheists” care about of course is whether they’re being flattered or not.

I agree–at a newspaper, no way. At a blog–I think the standards are lower, especially for just elevating a comment. You have a rough sense sense of the email, though there were even more details than you imagine, plus a home phone number and all sorts of professions of sincerity.

This makes me want to scream. Is she still pushing the line that Mooney did any investigating prior to elevating the comment? He. Did. Not.

Will someone please address this with her? Please? She’s tried to make this the central issue, and I can’t even imagine at this point that she’s being deliberately dishonest since it’s so obvious she’s wrong. Can someone call her on this at her blog or at Coyne’s? I can’t take it anymore! Please, please, please get her to acknowledge that Mooney did not even email “TJ” prior to elevating the comment!

In case this doesn’t make it through moderation over at the Intersocktion, a copy is preserved here:

Perhaps a brief summary would be helpful:

(1) Chris and Sheril publish Unscientific America.

(2) Critics point out that Chris and Sheril’s most controversial thesis in the book — namely, that the Gnu Atheists’ unapologetic criticism of religion is damaging the public acceptance of science (hereafter referred to as the MK thesis) — is merely an opinion unsupported by evidence.

(3) Chris and Sheril’s followers observe that the book contains oodles of evidence; in fact, a whole bibliography full of citations!

(4) Critics note that the relevant cited references contain only more opinions, but no evidence.

(5) Chris proudly unveils “Tom Johnson” as “Exhibit A.”

(6) Critics note that anonymous anecdotes do not constitute evidence, and that the given anecdote is wildly implausible to anyone with a nodding acquaintance with human nature.

(7) Much time passes.

(8) In connection with another controversy, “Tom Johnson” admits that he is a serial liar and puppetmaster.

(9) Critics point out that the MK thesis is now utterly unsupported by even any pretense of evidence.

(10) Chris observes that Tom’s story might still be true.

(11) Jerry Coyne reveals that Tom’s story is a complete fabrication.

(12) Critics note that the MK thesis is still not supported by any evidence.

(13) Chris refers critics to Unscientific America. Can anyone see a problem with the response given in item (13)?

This is very rude of me, but it has been my experience over several years now – Kazez just cannot and will not admit error or take anything back, ever. I have literally never seen her do anything but obstinately defend and shift and evade, until people give up or she declares the discussion over.

Noooooo! But…at least if someone posts on one of those two sites “Jean Kazez: To clarify: Is it still your claim that Mooney verified “TJ”‘s identity and/or corresponded with him prior to elevating his comment? On what do you base this claim? How does it square with the evidence that clearly indicates that he did not?” it would be right in her face and she’d have to address it or run away.

(1) Chris and Sheril publish Unscientific America.

Well, there’s the whole infuriating history at Sb prior to the book, in which people tried politely to get him to substantiate his claims and he responded just as he is now at the new blog (promising future clarifications, ignoring solid criticism, complaining about “tone,” moderating comments, etc.) in addition to offering the constant refrain about how all would be dealt with in his book, after which he ran to Discover. (By the way, if anyone is thinking of reading the book, I did so – skimming a few sections – while standing in the bookstore. I don’t think it took an hour. It’s something like 118 pages – read like slightly longer than a typical Oracian blog post, with much bigger type and a small fraction of the substance.)

Hahaha – I like Gnu Atheists.

I want the t-shirt!

***

…So… The Signal in the Noise hasn’t posted since this all blew up. Vacation, rethinking after the revelations, or another sockpuppet?

SC, yes, I was aware of the whole “framing” business, but my main purpose was to accentuate the circularity of Chris’s reference to Unscientific America. I think he is relying on the assumption than many current observers of this train wreck only tuned in after the sock-puppet fiasco. But perhaps he has forgotten that Unscientific America was not greeted with unanimous praise.

What I mean is that my assumption all along was that Chris first received the email, then elevated the comment. That was the basis for all my remarks about vetting, due diligence etc. I had no idea the order was in question–I didn’t remember those passages at The Intersection and didn’t see the discussion at Pharyngula. So–very interesting–as they used to say on Laugh In. Once I’ve got all my facts in a row, I will be posting something about this.

uhg, this whole “Chris Mooney didn’t properly vet Tom Johnson is sooooo … annoying. Who cares, Exhibit A is Exhibit A because Chris said it was Exhibit A.

He just took an anecdote and said, “there see I’m right” … he didn’t have to “vet” the damn thing, he blogging, its not a congressional inquiry.

Where he screwed up, was when people started calling him on the obvious bogus nature of the story – and then he went all “well, mumble mumble, it might be true”, and Kazez said, it true QED and it doesn’t matter if it is true cause everyone knows its true.

Instead Mooney says, “I hardly ever agree with Coyne, but since he just ran this one into the ground, I’ll have to say, my bad, I clearly was fed a line that fed by predispositions” …

Irony, Mooney has more child soldiers than Coyne … Texas TEKS people at least read Coyne, they are so offended by Mooney calling all republicans hostile to science that they definitely hate him. Coyne … at least wrote a book that tried to educate them. Mooney just calls the whole republican party “hostile”.

Insane. Come on Chris, just say you are sorry and join us. We are fun people. Your kind of people, we hate all the same things you do, we just don’t believe in the golden mean when religion and science are in conflict. Please, come get your scarlet A and stop fighting it.

A true life of service requires surrender. Accept Science as your savior. Just say the words.

Jean, I am looking for the reason why Chris said the story “might still be accurate.” Once Tom Johnson was discredited, there was no evidence left, as you and Coyne have confirmed. Why did Chris then say it might still be true? Does he mean it in the vacuous sense that most anything might be true? Condoleezza Rice might have a bionic eye. Probably not, but it might still be true. Is what Chris means when he says the Tom Johnson story “might still be accurate”? This alone has created much confusion.

It would really be better if the “source” frame got dropped from Tom Johnson, he wasn’t a source he was just a troll, and a lying sack of crap, the “source” frame makes this sound all professional and stuff.

also, drop the “protect him from danger” frame … there is no danger. No one is going to hurt Tom Johnson.

What I mean is that my assumption all along was that Chris first received the email, then elevated the comment

Oh, good grief. So now your story–your excuse–is that you didn’t bother to check even the publicly available facts on the situation before coming to Mooney’s defense and attacking his critics?

1) Mooney uses an anonymous story, one incredible on its face, as “Exhibit A”–as **proof**–of his thesis that New Atheists are uncivil and are thus hurting the cause of science.

And, no, Mooney did not merely “elevate” a comment, that is a bit of Nesbitian/Mooneyesque framing meant to feign a lack of culpability on Mooney’s part for **citing** an anonymous, un-vetted, facially incredible tale as proof of his thesis. He did not present it as merely one person’s perspective, just a story, but rather as a representative anecdote. Indeed there would be no reason to post such a story if it was not representative because if it was an outlier, an exception, that would *disprove* Mooney’s thesis. So we can dispense with the “elevation” nonsense.

2) Mooney writes a second post excoriating people who are skeptical of the incredible tale, Mooney having corresponded with “Tom Johnson” without actually corroborating any of the questionable details of the story before attacking its critics in the new post.

3) “Tom Johnson” exposed as serial liar. Mooney espouses Mooney’s noble victimhood, but maintains the story might still be accurate, just as Leprechauns might actually exist. Jean Kazez given sekrit information by Mooney. Kazez jumps full force to Mooney’s defense and attacks his critics for him.

4) “Tom Johnson’s” story researched and utterly debunked by biologist Jerry Coyne, who shows Chris Mooney what journalism and objective and honest inquiry looks like. Mooney pretends to thank Coyne for a job well done, but opines that people don’t know his “full experience” of the story–because, as a confirmed narcissist, the story is always about Mooney, unless the story involves blame, culpability or acknowledging being wrong, in which case it is never about him.

5) Mooney apologist Jean Kazez, having failed any due diligence in the matter, now says that, of course, she naturally and reasonably assumed facts not in evidence. Kazez:

I had no idea the order was in question

Well, no, passive voice aside, the order is not in question, and never has been. Rather you didn’t bother to check the facts, but are now pretending that there was some common controversy that you reasonably were unaware of, rather than, you know, that you failed to check the actual posts on this issue before defending Mooney’s actions in the same and attacking his critics.

So–very interesting–as they used to say on Laugh In. Once I’ve got all my facts in a row, I will be posting something about this.

Here’s a hint. That is supposed to be step one, rather than the step you post after you’ve been attacking Mooney’s critics based on assumptions and then caught with your facts down. Reminds me of some one else we know about who always tries to cover their culpability with excuses, rhymes with “Looney”…hmm…who could it be…?

I’m sure I’m not the first to call attention to it, but…this still makes me laugh:

(1) Chris and Sheril publish Unscientific America.

…

…(5) Chris proudly unveils “Tom Johnson” as “Exhibit A.”

(The bogus) “Exhibit A” arrives months after the writing of the book. And is presented – without shame, even proudly – as Exhibit A. Exhibit A. Which exhibit? A. Months later, he refers people back to the book for evidence.

I feel like Rip van Winkle – two days of a dead internet/phone line and all this stuff has happened. I strongly suspect that what happened is that Mooney wrote his book, substituting assertions for fact, never suspecting someone like Ophelia would glom onto him and insist on getting answers. So he bans her and is still floundering. Then along comes TJ and for the first time ever, he thinks he actually has something concrete to back the assertions he’s been making all along. What I’m saying is that it is the sheer lack of anything concrete up to that point that made him leap on TJ’s story like water in the desert – which it was, except it was a mirage. He would never have elevated a lie to a post, if he’d had something better to offer. Exhibit A, indeed.

Kazez: “What I mean is that my assumption all along was that Chris first received the email, then elevated the comment. That was the basis for all my remarks about vetting, due diligence etc. I had no idea the order was in question–I didn’t remember those passages at The Intersection and didn’t see the discussion at Pharyngula.”

Jean. let’s face it. You have lost your reliability as a “witness” in this case. Of course, it can be that Mr. Mooney has problems presenting his case sincerely and unambigously even to friends that he is asking privately for help. If so, I wonder why he is such a widely respected journalist among accomodationists.

Oh, yes he is. Shame on you for failing to recognize the codeword microevolution. It means any evolution (microbial drug resistance, etc) that I have no choice but to accept.

Oh come on Ken. Whilst Brownback may think he’s on safe ground by assenting to microevolution whilst rejecting macroevolution we all know that to do so is the same as assenting to ‘seconds’ yet rejecting the possibility of ‘minutes hours and days.’

The point I was making still stands. Mooney lifted Brownback’s comment thusly:

Insofar as NAs conform to my view (ie vicious bigots turning science into an anti-religion doctrine) then they’ll make people reject science. Don’t believe me? Well listen to Mr Brownback…

He selectively quotes the latter half of Brownback’s statement as an example of someone rejecting evolution because of the overt atheistic connotations. When in reality, Brownback was rejecting one possible interpretation of his assenting to belief in evolution.

I’ve decided not to bother with the Interslacktion any more. This whole ‘held in moderation’ thing is like trying to have a conversation with six people over a 1970’s satellite feed with a drunk operator randomly dropping the line.

FWIW it seems that Mooney is happy to let a post get through moderation complete with difficult questions provided they are directed at other posters rather than himself.

From the pieces of information I gathered here and there, he seemed to be a promising young writer when his book TRWoS came out. And then he had a change of mind/perspective and joined the league of framers. After that, he pretty much exposed himself to the world through a chain of bungles who he really is “now”: a dishonest, unethical, shallow, dirty, childish and petulant grown-up.

I mean, it is of course difficult to fathom how he managed to change his mind/perspective to embrace “framing” in the first place. (If I remember correctly, he never explained (the common “explain,” not the Mooney “explain”) on why and/or how he did so.). But I find it even more puzzling and interesting on why a change of ideology would entail a change of behavior.

Is it because accommodationism is not really a logically coherent idea, but just a the-end-justifies-the-means kind of stance/declaration? So when a person imbibes it, he will realize it actually “allows” or even compels him to “accommodate” certain behaviors that he would not in normal situations?

That has been the subject of much speculation. Mooney’s own answer is that he has read a lot of philosophy and theology on the compatibility of science and religion. If he has he clearly has not been reading the decent stuff. Others note that Mooney began his slide towards accomodationism ever since he hooked up with Nisbett and then later Kirshenbaum. Neither seems to have been a good influence on him.

Maybe Ophelia, Russell and others here could come up with a reading list for Mooney, only this time suggesting authors who present decent arguments rather than the garbage he has picked up from somewhere.

So, Ophelia, now that you are one of those privileged enough to have secret uncensored face-to-face email exchange with the failed sock puppetry master, would you follow scott’s and others suggestion or at least satisfy your own craving for speculating someone else’s motivation, and ask that principal witness of Exhibit A why he did what he did?

I also think that it is important for you (to do for us) to obtain the early correspondence between him and the very first willing victim he deceived, for that will once and for all to prove whether Mooney is just gullible or … something else.

“Where I differ from Coyne is that I don’t really care about a little intellectual inconsistency in my fellow human beings, and indeed, I try not judge”

This is why we need a 3rd way in this struggle: NeoAccomodationism, in order to unite both the New Atheists and Accomodationists and search for compatibility between science and… erm… science. I’ve read enough philosophy to realise that there is no fundamental contradiction between science and science. Besides, most of the trouble makers are biologists (who you were always weary of letting near you pets anyway), the third way is for chemists and physicists only.

Well he did at one stage base his claims on “reading more in history and philosophy” – that’s a paraphrase from memory rather than a direct quote, but it’s pretty close; I looked it up recently. That was his claim for awhile but then critics started replying and (I think) he realized that he didn’t know much about it and would probably do better to drop that line.

I strongly suspect that what happened is that Mooney wrote his book, substituting assertions for fact, never suspecting someone like Ophelia would glom onto him and insist on getting answers.

(Stewart)

I think that’s right. He sent me the book, so I think it’s pretty obvious that he wasn’t expecting me to be so critical of it. That’s strange in itself, really – I’ve never been able to understand it. Even apart from the flaws in the book as a whole – I’m an overt atheist, and chapter 8 simply is an aggressive attack on the very idea of overt atheism; I can’t imagine why he didn’t imagine in advance that I might find that dubious.

Well he did at one stage base his claims on “reading more in history and philosophy” – that’s a paraphrase from memory rather than a direct quote, but it’s pretty close; I looked it up recently. That was his claim for awhile but then critics started replying and (I think) he realized that he didn’t know much about it and would probably do better to drop that line.

That is what I can remember him saying as well. I don’t know what is was he read but clearly it was either a load of crap, or he did not understand it. Or both.

Oh come on Ken. Whilst Brownback may think he’s on safe ground by assenting to microevolution whilst rejecting macroevolution we all know that to do so is the same as assenting to ’seconds’ yet rejecting the possibility of ‘minutes hours and days.’

I don’t mean to battle with you here, FresnoBob, but as a diligent student of the ID movement for fifteen years, I do feel compelled to point out that ‘minutes hours and days’ here means speciation. That is, Brownback is rejecting the whole of evolutionary theory to the extent that he is able to. You and I understand that macroevolution is just the outcome of microevolution. The ID fraud contends that they are, in fact, distinct, and Brownback is following their lead.

How did I get into this mess? First of all, I’ve followed Jean Kazez’s blogging here and formerly in the TPM blog, and while I don’t always agree with her or even like her, I respect her ethical fine tuning. From the TPM blog, I also got to know one prominent New Atheist blogger, and her need to dominate, her Wille Zur Macht, her need for adulation, lead me to see her as the Ayn Rand of the New Atheism…So we have the farce of scores of people dedicating hours and hours to finding errors in the collected works of Chris Mooney, under the pretext of journalistic ethics, but actually, because Chris dared to ban Ms. Ayn Rand reincarnated from his blog and Ms. Ayn Rand reincarnated does not accept slights. If Chris Mooney had a blog about golf and had used a dubious source, I doubt that any New Atheist would have bothered to yawn about it. If Chris Mooney had lauded Ayn Rand II in his blog, the New New Atheists (those who spend all day blogging about Mooney) would have sent him kisses. Anyway, that’s how I see this mess.

Even better is the claim that Woodward and Bernstein only had one anonymous source for the whole Watergate story. Forgetting that W&B knew who the source was (it was only in the film he was in darkness), forgetting that they verified he was high up in the FBI, forgetting that he supplied them with actual documented evidence, forgetting that they also confirmed the story and elements of the story with a variety of people who would have been involved. If you forget all that, Watergate and Mooney are identical parables.

I don’t mean to battle with you here, FresnoBob, but as a diligent student of the ID movement for fifteen years, I do feel compelled to point out that ‘minutes hours and days’ here means speciation. That is, Brownback is rejecting the whole of evolutionary theory to the extent that he is able to. You and I understand that macroevolution is just the outcome of microevolution. The ID fraud contends that they are, in fact, distinct, and Brownback is following their lead.

Of course, no argument from me, Ken.

I understand that his position is in reality a flawed and self-deceiving rejection of evolution, but in the context of his statement, and how it was used by Mooney to ‘prove’ his point, he was actually accepting evolution (albeit his false conception of it) whilst Mooney was trying to say that he was rejecting it thanks to vocal atheists.

I think Jean is indicating here that she hasn’t quite gotten her facts in a row, and she’s going to make a post about it. I think it would be a good idea to wait to see what she has to say. As far as that goes let’s all be Buddha for a little while.

People do not reject evolution because of vocal atheists, they reject it because they a) they think it conflicts with their religious views and b) they do not understand the science. If your religious views require your god to have had a controlling role in the creation of life, and especially humans, then evolution does indeed conflict with your religious views. However it is those religious views that are the problem.

@Matt: Modern American Biblical literalism really pushes the anti-evolution thing. And modern American Biblical literalism WAS a reaction to something – but it wasn’t vocal atheists. It was a reaction to the documentary hypothesis and other aspects of modern Biblical scholarship that started gaining ground in the later 19th Century. American fundamentalism is best understood as a backlash against “liberal” Christianity, not as a reaction to atheism.

@Benjamin #158: On the contrary, Jean Kazez repeatedly indicated that she HAD all her facts and ducks in a row (the facts keep changing, but never mind that). When I asked her exactly what kind of corroboration Chris Mooney had sought and received in the Johnson affair — for example, a second eye-witness — she first replied that obviously it would be silly to require videos and such-like.

When I told her that her reply smacked of sophistry, her measured, rational response was that I was dense. At that point, she forfeited my respect and good will. I informed her that I’m not an undergrad in one of her classes, and that her attempts to move goalposts were both transparent and feeble. I have seen better logic and ethics in elementary school nyah-nyah exchanges. And if that is the “nice” face of accommodationism, I wonder how they intend to win hearts and minds.

You’re wrong about my not being willing to take things back. I actually like to be right! If I’m not right, I’m definitely going to take things back.

Well no – you weren’t right in that argument about the Motoons, but you didn’t take things back.

But to the present – I’ve just looked again at your “Truth about Tom Johnson” post and some of your comments. You were very sure you knew what was what, via Mooney. But you didn’t. I’ve exchanged emails with TJ now; I’ve talked on the phone to his adviser; I’ve had a lengthy email from the colleague who went to that famous meeting with him, the one where things did not happen the way he said they did. Much of what you said in your post and comments was wrong. Being wrong isn’t a crime, but your judgment was off – your judgment that there was simply no reason to think Mooney was wrong and credulous to take TJ at face value.

You may recall that a former colleague of mine responded to that post of yours, and the comments on it, by calling “the New Atheists”

the 21st century, virtual-world, equivalent of a medieval mob baying for the blood of their latest victim.

But we Gnu Atheists were right, and you were wrong. And we weren’t baying for anyone’s blood, but we thought TJ’s lies and smears were non-trivial. His adviser and his colleague emphatically think so too. You’ve been shrugging off the significance of TJ’s lies and smears all this time; does it disconcert you at all to know that people who work with him don’t agree with you?

That post and those comments of yours are full of things that you got wrong. By all means take things back.

I might as well address more fundamental issues while I’m here: People like “Johnson” can wreak havoc in a laboratory, in a department, in peer review groups and in representing their discipline to others. His behavior on the Internet is a symptom and it’s decidedly non-trivial.

As for Mooney, he has zero qualifications to represent scientists to non-scientists. Scientists can speak up for themselves and have their own well-informed, articulate representatives. In this time and place, where political decisions based on skewed or false “science” affect the entire planet and its biosphere, Mooney’s stance is irresponsible, dangerous — and frankly, little short of immoral. He is using the pulpit very baldly for personal aggrandizement. More on this: On Being Bitten to Death by Ducks

Athena, vendettas aside, I was referring to Jean’s comment #128. “So–very interesting–as they used to say on Laugh In. Once I’ve got all my facts in a row, I will be posting something about this.” Let’s all give her a bit of time to take a deep breath and think it through.

Benjamin, this has nothing to do with vendettas, but with credibility. Exactly how many “takes” on facts would you give anyone before you stopped taking them seriously? Three? Six? Sixteen? For you this may be an intellectual exercise. For me, “Johnson” is a person who may end up working in my lab.

It may surprise you to know, Jean, that they don’t even think what TJ did to me was trivial. On the contrary.

I’ve been looking at your later posts. Lots of scolding of your critics, lots of insistence that there was no reason to think Mooney had been culpably duped, lots of insistence that everybody but you and Mooney was all wrong about TJ/William. You were wrong about all of that. Wrong, and accusatory. By all means take things back.

Eh, silly feeble-minded me, I thought the focus was 1) accommodationism and 2) whether cases like “Johnson” are more than just the Internetz randomly spazzing but may have real consequences. That’s me being told. Back to counting angels on the top of pins, everybody!

Ophelia (#162), I owe you an apology. Not for anything I’ve said, but for thinking, Why does she keep going on about all this ancient obscure crap? I had no idea that, as recently as July 9, Jean Kazez was assuring her readers that TJ’s testimony was authentic and that she had the proof.

Once I’ve got all my facts in a row, I will be posting something about this

Heh. I do have my reasons, Ken. On the other hand it’s also true that I can get obsessive and pedantic and tiresome! So the thought was forgivable.

Ben. Maybe, but then again, history is not encouraging on this score. I think it might be more productive to remind JK of what she said and who knows what about what. For a couple of weeks she had the advantage of privileged information, which has now been revealed to be not much information at all; she no longer has that advantage, because I have more information than she does, and from sources less compromised than Mooney. I think it might be productive to inform her of that. It may be that I’m wrong and you’re right, but given past experience, I don’t put much trust in the power of time and pondering.

Well, I am happy that those Gnu Atheists worst slandered by “TJ” via Intersection now know his(?) identity and can discuss the matter with him and his superiors and/or colleagues.

What I wonder is the behaviour of Mr. Mooney. I can understand a journalist hiding his sources (or “sources” in this case), but then why not shut up totally? The idea of sharing one’s confidential infromation with others (Kazez and TB) in order to get allies to fight off criticism does not sound very valiant. Moreover, it was useless. The Gnus, through their own research (especially Dr. Coyne), have provided the most reliable information about “TJ”, without outing him.

I wonder if Mooney, Kazez or TB ever tipped “TJ” to contact those people he had slandered.

I’m not clear on a couple of things. Did Mooney ever actually check out TJ or did he just claim to have done so? If he really did check out the story, he would have found out the story was completely false — but then he went on as though it was actually true. And then what of Mooney’s cohorts? Did he simply tell them, “Oh yeah, I checked and it’s totally true” and they believed him? Or did they get to check it out and then went on as if it was true, even though they knew it wasn’t?

Jean Kazez says that Mooney got a big ol’ email message from TJ in October – though as revealed above, she thought he got it before he posted the story, rather than after. At any rate he got this big ol’ email message, and it was full of links and other stuff JK was not at liberty to reveal but it was all way way convincing.

That’s it. That’s the supposed checking. It wasn’t such good checking. TJ told Mooney a pack of lies. Jean thought the email was enough. She was wrong.

She was very very definite about this, just Sunday evening. No doubts, no reason for doubts, Gnu Atheists all wrong, JK all korrect.

Finally, about Chris Mooney. People at other blogs are saying since it turns out the “Tom Johnson” story was false, he’s been discredited and I was wrong to vouch for him. What? The question about Chris, as a journalist, is just whether he did the right things, whether the October 2009 email appeared convincing, whether there were corroborating links, etc. “Due diligence” just means all that, not protecting yourself from every conceivable fraud. It does not mean spending weeks investigating an anecdote, before elevating it from comments to a blog post. It does not mean treating someone with the suspicion we all now justifiably feel toward “Tom Johnson.” Good journalists get scammed. Surely this is right.

No. That is not right. As many people have said, many many times, the anecdote itself was highly implausible on its face. I said that at the time, as did other people. It sounded like Gatsby hunting lions in the Bois de Boulogne. It sounded fake. We now know it was fake. It sounded fake and it was fake; it sounded fake because it was fake. TJ’s colleague is not pleased at his version of the event they attended; neither is his adviser. So all that superior, surely you can see, this is just common sense assertion is dead wrong. A good journalist would not have been scammed by a story as ridiculous as that one was. JK needs to admit she got it all wrong, and apologize to the people she’s been scolding for two weeks. It’s that simple.

Ben, I guess I think it’s had a shot. Given that JK has been maligning a lot of people all this time – especially, frankly, me – she should hurry up about it. She should at least do a place-holder post if she doesn’t have time to get her facts lined up right away – she should do a place-holder post withdrawing some of her scorn and hostility to the Gnu Atheists who were not convinced by her Sekrit Knollej. As for Buddha – yeah right – you know how good I am at that!

Jeremy Stangroom should withdraw his accusations too. But I’m not holding my breath.

Jean Kazez says that Mooney got a big ol’ email message from TJ in October – though as revealed above, she thought he got it before he posted the story, rather than after.

I thought before that she was being dishonest in claiming this, but I came to believe of late (confirmed in this thread) that she had fallen for Mooney’s intentional vagueness about the order of events, or he deliberately misled her. I think I mentioned this in a comment thread at Pharyngula a while back, but in the “Truth about Tom Johnson” [!] thread Ophelia links to above, Kazez refers to “an Oct 9 email.” But this is impossible. The comment by TJ that Mooney raised up as “Exhibit A” wasn’t even posted until October 15.* I think Mooney – and TB – have been willing to hang Kazez and her credibility out to dry. Of course, Kazez allowed this to happen, and has exhibited some truly bad behavior herself, but she has to be realizing now, at long last, that Mooney is not an honorable person.

As many people have said, many many times, the anecdote itself was highly implausible on its face. I said that at the time, as did other people. It sounded like Gatsby hunting lions in the Bois de Boulogne. It sounded fake.

Though I suppose it does not sound fake to someone who holds certain nasty prejudices about what affirmative atheists must be like. And it probably sounds less fake to someone who’s managed to insulate herself from the understanding that those prejudices exist.

Just as an analogy– besides that Bob Novak story I mentioned a while back, I’m reminded of a certain well-known nutjob in the local African American activist community. (I won’t name him because I don’t want to take the risk of his showing up here. He has a history of threats and impulsive violence.) This guy seems to hate all the Black activists who don’t recognize his special imaginary authority. I can easily imagine someone with his level of malfunction claiming that, oh, the local mostly-white Unitarian church brought in some Black activists as a hands-across-the-race-divide thing and some horrible guy from the Urban League spat in their faces and screamed that Obama was going to grind whitey into the dirt, or some such nonsense. This would, of course, be crazy. We all know this, right? It sounds crazy. It smells crazy. It is crazy. We’d have to be crazy to buy it at face value from a single source, even after confirming the name of the guy pushing the story, even if we didn’t happen to know that the guy was a wingnut with a weird hate-on for the Urban League — it’s just that fake-sounding. That is, we’d have to be either crazy or racist.

Buying a ridiculous story like that is a catastrophic wisdom failure. It’s a signal to sit down and have a good think about one’s own prejudices and how they might be jamming up the radar. I would be happier with Jean if I saw that happening.

I’ve read Jean’s blog on a casual basis for a fairly long time (she addresses some special interests of mine) and I think I may even have delurked a time or two. So I keep wanting to think things like, “Well, it’s Jean! Good ol’ Jean! She’s made a mistake! She’ll get it together! She’ll apologize and think again! She’s not really so bad!” I want to blame that absurd toady Amos, or what I see as her general disinclination to get into the fray, or… really anything except the obvious. But the rubber has met the road, and I’m coming to think that I’ve been mistaken about her character. I hope she takes a moment to take a deep breath, make some chai, consider the mitzvot of speech, and open herself to the understanding that she was spectacularly wrong and has been a party to wronging others.

Cam, quite, and that’s just it. There’s something really ugly going on in the minds of people who thought that story sounded plausible – a kind of stupid and obstinate hatred of gnu atheists that is just nasty, and if pushed, plain dangerous.

Anyway, there’s little hope of her doing any opening to understanding. Have you seen what she said to Josh on the “What Journalists” thread? Stunning – especially since she has already admitted she got her facts wrong. But that was last night. Apparently now she’s back in “Defend the fort!” mode.

Cam, quite, and that’s just it. There’s something really ugly going on in the minds of people who thought that story sounded plausible –

It was also ridiculous to believe that this was happening at events organized by religious groups in a state that he presented as hostile to science (religious) and an anonymous comment was the first people were hearing of it. There are just so many elements of the tale that made it implausible it would take some time to list them all. They really had to be blinded by unreasonable prejudice to not be skeptical and to so readily dismiss others’ skepticism.

you do have to think about your journalistic standards in terms of the stuff that’s being written at B&W. There are attacks there against me that are totally groundless. People are not looking at facts calmly. I have been accused of lying by Ophelia (using euphemisms) when the facts just don’t bear this out. She is making petty, juvenile little comments about commenters at my blog. So B&W is essentially now a crappy tabloid, and yet you’re here telling me that another blog doesn’t meet your high journalistic standards. Please. Either I’m going to have to just vomit on the keyboard or we’re going to have to stop talking about high journalistic standards.

1) I said JK told a falsehood about me on Jerry’s thread. She did. She said I “chimed in enthusiastically” with something said to her when I didn’t.

2) “Petty, juvenile little comments about commenters at my blog” – meaning amos – who said this about me:

From the TPM blog, I also got to know one prominent New Atheist blogger, and her need to dominate, her Wille Zur Macht, her need for adulation, lead me to see her as the Ayn Rand of the New Atheism…So we have the farce of scores of people dedicating hours and hours to finding errors in the collected works of Chris Mooney, under the pretext of journalistic ethics, but actually, because Chris dared to ban Ms. Ayn Rand reincarnated from his blog and Ms. Ayn Rand reincarnated does not accept slights. If Chris Mooney had a blog about golf and had used a dubious source, I doubt that any New Atheist would have bothered to yawn about it. If Chris Mooney had lauded Ayn Rand II in his blog, the New New Atheists (those who spend all day blogging about Mooney) would have sent him kisses.

Kazez has no problem with that YNH-worthy outpouring of bile, but my mentioning it is petty and juvenile. The comment is poisonous, but it’s my objection that makes her want to vomit on her keyboard. That’s her notion of high journalistic standards.

3) She complains that I say things here, but she has blocked me from saying them there. I guess I’m supposed to say nothing. Well fuck that. If she or “amos” pisses on me there, I’m likely to point it out here. Kazez pretends to be of the Party of Nice, but, as so often with people who pretend that, she is considerably less nice than people who make no such claim.

It does seem odd that Kazez implies that as “webmaster” of B&W, Josh shouldn’t talk about journalistic standards since B&W is now a “crappy tabloid”, ignoring that throughout the whole situation it’s Kazez who has not bothered with even keeping track of the story she has been unequivocally defending.

Well, frankly, that’s typical Kazez. She doesn’t join things up well, at least not when blogging. (I assume she does better when writing professionally.) That “so” is classic – there is no “so.” I’ve said something about a poisonous comment about me on her blog, “so” B&W is a crappy tabloid. Right.

There’s something really ugly going on in the minds of people who thought that story sounded plausible – a kind of stupid and obstinate hatred of gnu atheists that is just nasty, and if pushed, plain dangerous.

Indeed, and there’s still plenty of it going on over on The Intersocktion thread – particularly from Anthony ‘will lie for woo’ McCarthy and the other anti-atheist creeps and pro-faith, self-loathing atheist fawners and grovellers – and thanks to the ridiculous moderation standards no-one’s able to get through to point out what disingenuous, intellectually dishonest scumbags they are.

They don’t seem to understand that they got played and caught out and that they should just admit as much. The lengths they’re going to to rationalise Mooney’s actions, and their subsequent adoration of both him and Tom Johnson, is just sickening.

The Intersocktion thread – particularly from Anthony ‘will lie for woo’ McCarthy and the other anti-atheist creeps and pro-faith, self-loathing atheist fawners and grovellers – and thanks to the ridiculous moderation standards no-one’s able to get through to point out what disingenuous, intellectually dishonest scumbags they are.

Ahem. I have no doubt that Mooney and his supporters are sincere in their concern with the state of American science literacy, and in their perception that framing is critical to addressing this. It stands to reason that they would regard new atheism as unhelpful, at best. But why the blind hostility? Why the gullibility for something like Exhibit A?

Richard Dawkins has, on several occasions when asked, indicated that he really doesn’t give a damn about the impact of what he writes, and what he says, on American science education. To someone (like Chris), who has consciously compromised his or her intellectual integrity to the service of science education, that must seem outrageously selfish. If these people are unwilling to lie about something this important, they must be capable of anything, including mocking the religious to their face, shouting forced laughter at them, and calling them “stupid,” “ignorant” and the like.

As a best scenario, these folks will come to understand the futility of their agenda. If a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged, and a liberal is a conservative who’s become disabled, then perhaps a new atheist is an accommodationist who’s been laughed at too many times by creationists.

Oh, that. Eh. I don’t think that bugged Josh a quarter as much as the thing about how nobody cares about little bitty journalistic gaffes anyway if that’s what this was. I enjoyed the angry muttering over that one. (That’s not sarcasm — Josh is ordinarily so mellow that when he does get a little ranty, it’s a treat.)

It’s not clear to me whether Jean stuck her nose in or whether it’s more that she was dragged into it. And I think it’d be tough for many people to apologize in a situation like Jean’s, given that so many people are so justifiably and sometimes loudly furious with her. I do disagree with her about the believability of that story, but speaking only for myself, I’m ready to acquiesce to her desire not to be badgered about her role in this.

It’s not clear to me whether Jean stuck her nose in or whether it’s more that she was dragged into it.

Not clear to me, but I don’t think Jean would be led into something or manipulated into anything. I base this only on following articles and blogs. Jean is articulate, erudite and rational in her published writing (I may not agree with it at times) and from her slightly different style on blogs and comments, I just don’t see her as easily manipulated.

Personally, without dipping into pop psychology, I think it’s a bit simpler: she’s defending a friend against attack (justified or not, I do the same to my friends. I may express disappointment with their actions/decisions in private, but in public I’ll stand by them) and also (here’s the pop psychology) like all of us here, Jean likes a good scrap/debate on the internet.

I guess that’s the problem/issue that’s really at the heart of this division, what people say on the internet or in print is not a reflection of the individual in the real world. Jean is right to argue that there is a case for relaxed standards and ethics with blogs and comments sections. I agree, there is an argument to say that, I don’t agree it should be the case though. But then, that argument is counter to the general accomodationism argument to me. You can’t judge PZ, Ophelia, Dawkins, etc on the basis of their blogs, articles or writings as to how they would deal with people face to face. In the same way you can’t leap to the conclusion that those who comment and support those writers are exactly as confrontational as they are on their respective websites and forums. Another issue for another day.

The correction has been made, it doesn’t go as far as an apology or even criticism of Mooney, but then I personally don’t expect that from JK, just Mooney.

I just wanted to chime in with my two cents about your reputation as a result of this whole mess. I mean, they’ve called you a liar and insinuated you’re a raving vicious loon and they’ve spread all those memes around with never an apology, and of course you’re perfectly justified in actually being angry about the wrongs done you. But, from where I sit, you’ve consistently responded with dignity, rationality, and eloquence, and I’ve been impressed. I’d seen and liked your comments over at Pharyngula, but I’d never actually visited your blog before. Now that I have, I like what I see, and I plan to at least lurk. I’m hoping (and have a certain degree of expectation) that other folks who’ve been following this whole kerfluffle have come to the same conclusion.

So, in the midst of, and as a result of, this whole ugly mess, you’ve gained at least one new reader. I hope that counts as some sort of silver lining, and that the free advertising and publicity does more good than the slander (or is it more libel-y? I mix them up) does harm.

That’s not so much an admission of error as a continuing effort at self-absolution and refusal to engage in introspection. Ophelia was right.

I was not trying to say anything precise about the chronology of elevating, questioning etc., none of which was relevant to what I was vouching for.

Heh. Right.

***

Really, this is a larger question than simply basic standards for journalists, which Mooney didn’t meet even by the original skeletal standards of Kazez when she mistakenly believed he had checked TJ’s identity prior to posting his comment as “Exhibit A,” regardless of how widely they’re met in the contemporary media.

I’m reading Jeremy Cohen’s Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion from the Bible to the Big Screen (which I recommend), and am just now on the section on the libel myths of the Middle Ages. Cohen places this mythology within its socio-political context, looking at the interests of certain groups in propagating the idea of Jews conspiring to kidnap and ritually murder Christian children and desecrate communion wafers, how and why these myths spread, and their effects. He notes, disturbed, that even given how much is understood about these recurring narrative tropes, their contextual implausibility, and the motivations behind them, many scholars continue to lend them some credence or benefit of the doubt. With regard to the story of William of Norwich, a 12-year-old who was claimed to have been ritually murdered by Jews in the 12th century, he argues:

One level on which to study the Norwich affair is, of course, the level of what in fact happened to William and the nature of the Jews’ involvement. Yet ulterior motives propelled Thomas of Monmouth to tell William’s story. He began with the assumption that only the Jews could ever perpetrate such a crime. How, then, can one determine from his book what actually occurred or use it to weigh the guilt or innocence of the Jews? But the extent to which even presumably ‘critical’ modern scholars have studied William’s murder in these terms is truly astounding. Various non-Jewish writers, as much as they may have rejected Thomas’s report of an international Jewish conspiracy, have maintained the possibility that some Jew or Jews of Norwich did the deed. The Catholic Encyclopedia decrees the slander of the Jews for committing ritual murder, but maintains the possibility of a factual basis for the story….

Precisely here lies the crux of the problem, just as we saw in Chapter 1 concerning Raymond Brown’s presumptions of ‘verisimilitude’ or plausibility for the Passion narrative. Why the tendency to assume that Jews may, after all, have committed ritual murder? Why not assume just as plausibly that the charge results from an age-old tradition of Christian anti-Judaism in general, and the myth of the Christ killer in particular? In other words, why not begin with an entirely contrary premise: that there exists no good reason to suppose that Thomas of Monmouth’s hagiography, teeming with visions, miracles, demons, and expressions of divine providence as it is, accurately records the events of 1144?

The answer lies in the power of the Christ-killer myth itself, the extent to which it has permeated the Western way of thinking about Jews, not only in the Middle Ages among churchmen but even in modern times among historians. This brings us to the second, alternative level on which to approach the ‘ritual murder’ of William of Norwich, an approach treating the narrative of ritual murder as the historical event worthy of study, not what the story relates that its characters did or had done to them. As with the Gospels’ accounts of the Crucifixion, historians can much more fruitfully document the career of the story than they can establish its factual accuracy. In the case of the Passion narrative, I have followed John Dominic Crossan in arguing that one cannot allow oneself – neither on critical nor on ethical grounds – to assume probability from plausibility, or plausibility simply from the lack of impossibility. In the case of Norwich, it is additionally important to consider why Thomas told his story and the effect that the story had on generations to follow…. (101-2; my bold)

Now, I’m certainly not drawing a parallel between the situations of Jewish people in the Middle Ages or the present and atheists in the contemporary US, or of the severity of the accusations or other specifics. But there is a similarity in the nature of the stories and their acceptance and promotion, and the position of atheists in the Christian-dominated US adds ethical weight to the issue. Atheists are a despised minority in much of the country. Some atheist activists are professors, scientists, and writers, but even people like PZ and Ophelia are not in the strongest position in the US, and the majority of atheists are not as protected. People who promoted a story like this – of atheists gleefully and maliciously conspiring to attack Christians at Christian-cooperative events* – who accepted the story and presented it as evidence for their characterization of outspoken atheists, defended the storyteller from challenges and lauded him for his bravery in the face of alleged atheist harm, maintained the story’s plausibility and its promotion even after the source had been throughly discredited, and failed (so far) to repudiate the story entirely or acknowledge fully that it was fabricated, need to look at their consciences and at the possible effects of this propaganda on Christian views of atheists and on the silencing of atheist voices. I won’t even make my usual citation of Allen Wood on the ethics of belief in general here. This kind of tale does harm. To real people.

I’m astonished Kazez works on ethics. Her actions in this matter have been really problematic.

*I’ll note again that this was always wildly implausible in a context like a Baptist-sponsored event in somewhere like Alabama, especially that it would happen and not be major news.

Personally, without dipping into pop psychology, I think it’s a bit simpler: she’s defending a friend against attack

Well not exactly. The original situation, before all this got so heated, was the other way around – JK was friendly with me rather than Mooney. She’s always followed B&W closely; at first in a friendly way, then in a “what can I pounce on now” way. Her interest in Mooney was an outgrowth of mine; I was following his campaign against Gnu atheists, and she followed my following of his campaign. In that sense she did stick her nose in. No doubt they’re fast friends now, but it’s not the case that they have been friends all along, united in resisting my unfair criticisms of Mooney.

(What any of this has to do with “amos” is beyond me.)

Given the above, and given JK’s determined minimization of the significance of what TJ did (when much of what he did was a steady determined mendacious sexist obscene campaign against me), and given all the energetic asserting and scolding JK has done, I agree with SC; her “correction” is…unimpressive.

But I daresay she will stop calling me names now, and I will be able to ignore her again, which would be a very good thing.

Ha! So much for the idea that Kazez will stop calling me names now. She and “amos” have just had a little festival of it, an hour or so ago. The new and improved Jean Kazez:

Amos, I’ve stopped reading B&W (my husband got tired of it and blocked my access–very clever of him), but someone told me how you’ve been eviscerated over there. We are finding out what Ophelia is made of, aren’t we? … Obviously, it’s not my fault that Ophelia (and her fans–I hear they’re at it as well) have attacked you … I’m quite sorry people are targeting you, Amos, because that’s a painful thing. I know it, because it’s a painful thing to me to be unfairly targeted.

The unfairly targeted amos:

When I compared Ophelia to Ayn Rand, I did not expect her to send me kisses. I’m not an Ayn Rand fan myself, but a while ago, I read a long review of a biography of Ayn Rand and her sect, and it reminded me of B & W, a group of bright (almost entirely male) people, dominated by a brilliant, but closedminded and intolerant woman, a woman needing constant adulation and confirmation from her circle of yes-men, with vicious retribution against traitors to the cause (in both cases, the cause of reason) and apostates. I hope that you are well.

I do hope Kazez will eventually stop urinating on me so that I can get back to being more or less reasonable and those other good things. But while she is urinating on me, I feel a need to point out the fact.

B & W, a group of bright (almost entirely male) people, dominated by a brilliant, but closedminded and intolerant woman, a woman needing constant adulation and confirmation from her circle of yes-men, with vicious retribution against traitors to the cause (in both cases, the cause of reason) and apostates.

The projection is blinding.

By the way, aside from Kazez, I see few (if any) regular female commenters among the puny commentariat at the Intersocktion these days. A large and growing number at Pharyngula, in contrast.

Admittedly, there can be a yes-men effect around here. Also admittedly, I find it annoying. But that’s got nothing to do with Ophelia and everything to do with how people are. It’s inevitable that people will rally around charismatic authorities. But unlike a cult of personality, the yes-men effect is not resilient here — that is, the “yea-sayers” often fall very far short of consensus. It’s rare to find a venue where the spirit of discussion is capable of pushing in the direction of dissent. So, needless to say, amos’s “Randroid” accusations are hard to take seriously.

SC, that’s fascinating stuff, thanks a lot for your post. I don’t know what to think about the bolded sections, though. I’ve missed what you are referring to with Allan Wood — care to elaborate?

The projection and the clueless, mindless, helpless misogyny. Oh right – I’m evil because I’m a woman, I’m evil because most of the commenters here are male, I’m evil because I make arguments instead of just saying “oh you’re right” to everyone – “Ayn Rand” is code for castrating bitch. amos is a misogynist of the old school.

Lots of women comment at Pharyngula. More than one can tell from names – I met at least two who go by genderless names last night. PZ reminds the people who run conferences that they should invite some women. They tell him “Oh, uh, we couldn’t think of any.” eye roll

Ophelia, I’ve been following this sorry mess , even delurking to post once at the Intersection – the post was not let through of course- and it is astounding that people like JK and JS – once your friends – have so enthusiastically and rather viciously taken sides against you, personalising your reasonable criticisms of Mooney as harassment and obsessiveness. JK in particular has been very dismissive of your reputation, this entire blog (at least this crappy tabloid hasnt sunk to crappy movie reviews yet!) and taken to some rather low behaviour.

I just want to say, as one of your yes women commenter pack, that I admire your doggedness, honesty and clearmindedness.

I think the stupidest, and dirtiest, claim is that people who comment here are “dominated by” me. For christ’s fucking sake. There speaks the resentful male – oooooh there’s a woman who runs a website, and there are some men who comment on her website, so she’s the boss and they’re her underlings, so she’s dominating them like scary Ayn Rand. Ooooooooooh mummy that’s frightening.

Just classic. Just fucking classic. If a woman sticks her head over the parapet in any way, there will always be threatened bed-wetting men who squeal in terror that she’s trying to dominate them. Women are just not allowed to mouth off, because they’re supposed to stfu and let the men do the talking. JK is allowed because she makes a good stick to poke the scary aggressive woman with.

Ophelia, @204: AWESOME. I just want to print out that post and stick it on my wall in the office :-)

That’s precisely the feeling I’m getting from all the nasty comments directed toward you–including those from ‘Amos’ as well as ‘Tom Johnson’. A man who speaks his mind is bold; a woman who speaks her mind is a bitch.

And do please note that Kazez is treating amos as a man more sinned against than sinning. She’s apparently buying the bold/bitch frame. Or perhaps she’s back to simply supporting statements and stories that she hasn’t read in their entirety.

SC, that’s fascinating stuff, thanks a lot for your post. I don’t know what to think about the bolded sections, though.

Thanks! Huh. I was trying to say that, in a context in which a group of people is marginalized, engaging with stories about their malice and aggressive actions toward the dominant group that may well encourage negative and threatening stereotypes is serious business that carries ethical obligations. In such a context, “to assume probability from plausibility, or plausibility simply from the lack of impossibility” while ignoring the implausible elements and lack of substantiating evidence is ethically problematic. Mooney and Kazez appear to fall, in my stretched analogy, somewhere between the original libel propagaters and contemporary historians who continue to give their accounts some credence, thuogh closer to the former. Mooney especially has a personal and political-ideological stake in promoting such tales (along with certain misleading presentations of the words or actions of PZ, Coyne, etc.); at the same time, he appears to have bought into the general image of Gnu Atheists such that the story is believable to him in a way that blinds him to the problems with it, if largely a willful blindness. They’re responsible for their actions, and as I see it promoting and defending this narrative in this context in the manner they have is unethical. (It’s also of sociological and historical interest, as Cohen argues with regard to those earlier narratives: the story is obviously false, but its reception in various sectors, like that of other such characterizations of the Gnu Atheists, can be usefully analyzed in terms of how it plays to existing beliefs about atheists, how it serves various political and perhaps psychological functions for those accepting and telling it, and what its effects might be.)

I’ve missed what you are referring to with Allan Wood — care to elaborate?

SC, ah, to be clear I understood the point. ;) I was just saying that I don’t know what to think about it. I haven’t come to very clear convictions as far as ethics goes.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s putting the cart before the horse. I can’t usefully discuss the ethics of it if I don’t first know something that is far more basic — epistemic assertability. That is, I need to know what kinds of claims I’m entitled to assert without being resented as a knower; alternately, what claims I’m entitled to assert without it hurting my credibility with other knowers. Once that’s out of the way, we can discuss what’s ethical to assert. Until then, it’s just going to be a tug of war between Cliffordian intuitions and Jamesian ones. (This looks like it’s very close to what Wood is arguing, but it isn’t. He’s missing a step. But I won’t get into it here.)

The only confident thing I can say is this: insofar as you’re obliged to try to cooperate with people and treat them with respect, you’re not ethically entitled to stand by your mistakes. Mistakes are not mere errors, wherethe content ends up being false. They are unreasonable, foreseeable errors — falsities that come out of a failure to abide by some relevant conscious procedure that you’ve adopted, or would adopt if you were a judge in someone else’s case. (Italics echoing Wood for clarity.) But that’s a platitude.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s putting the cart before the horse. I can’t usefully discuss the ethics of it if I don’t first know something that is far more basic — epistemic assertability. That is, I need to know what kinds of claims I’m entitled to assert without being resented as a knower; alternately, what claims I’m entitled to assert without it hurting my credibility with other knowers. Once that’s out of the way, we can discuss what’s ethical to assert. Until then, it’s just going to be a tug of war between Cliffordian intuitions and Jamesian ones. (This looks like it’s very close to what Wood is arguing, but it isn’t. He’s missing a step. But I won’t get into it here.)

I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve argued that they’ve acted unethically – their concrete actions in a concrete context have been, in my view, unethical. Are you disagreeing with me, saying I’m not entitled to make that assertion, saying you’re not prepared to evaluate it – what? It might help if you stayed with the specific case at hand and the specific argument I’ve made. You don’t even mention them here, which seems…odd.

The only confident thing I can say is this: insofar as you’re obliged to try to cooperate with people and treat them with respect, you’re not ethically entitled to stand by your mistakes. Mistakes are not mere errors, wherethe content ends up being false. They are unreasonable, foreseeable errors — falsities that come out of a failure to abide by some relevant conscious procedure that you’ve adopted, or would adopt if you were a judge in someone else’s case. (Italics echoing Wood for clarity.) But that’s a platitude.

On my intuitive reading, Jean made an error (i.e., to believe in the TJ case) that led her into making a mistake (i.e., to assume that Mooney had checked the facts prior to posting). Because she’s a philosopher by training, she seems to be going back and forth between a) having a cooperative discussion and b) shutting people down.

The latter (b) is dogmatic, and probably unethical. Fine. Platitude.

However, this isn’t a useful point. Ophelia and others are going to look at my intuitive reading and say that I’ve got my errors confused with my mistakes. They’re going to say — plausibly, especially in hindsight– that Jean and Mooney both made a mistake by giving any credence to the TJ story in the first place, quite like the Anglos in Cohen’s story who stroke their beards and entertain anti-Semitic fictions.

Well, my point to you (in this case), and to Wood (for most cases), is first to say: forget ethics for a minute, epistemology is the problem. I stress this point, in this concrete context, because I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe that any group would behave like scum in an academic setting. I expect people to be angry about things they care about, and have experienced plenty of people behaving badly in those contexts.

Finally — to get to the bolded part of your text — I don’t see what else we have to appeal to when we have opinionated talk about probability of an unobserved case happening in some way, besides more opinionated talk about plausibility.

Ophelia and others are going to look at my intuitive reading and say that I’ve got my errors confused with my mistakes.

Maybe not. I go back and forth on that myself. I can see it as just an error…or I can see it as an error combined with (or caused by) a mistake – a failure to see what was wrong with Mooney’s practice from the beginning.

I have been asking myself if I could make the parallel error – believe a story that implausible if it were told about theists. If Jean’s husband unblocks her access to B&W and she reads this, she’ll roll her eyes with incredulity – but in cold blood I don’t think I could. I could probably believe some silly things about theists, but not this one. It just reeks of fakeness, no matter where the people are on the belief spectrum. These people are supposed to be adults and academics, at a major university. No I really don’t think I would believe that they were laughing in people’s faces and all the rest of the vaudeville package, because people just don’t act like that.

It’s a product of TJ’s imagination and his story-telling and writing ability. He’s not a good writer, especially when excited and angry. He’s clumsy. This story is clumsy.

I think the incredibility of the story is really obvious; I think both Mooney and Kazez made an error in not seeing that; I think the error was caused by the mistake of wanting to believe it. I think they wanted to believe it because of varying degrees of hostility to Gnu atheists.

Part of my irritation is probably literary, actually. Or literary-epistemological. If offends me that anyone could fail to see through that ridiculous clumsy childish story. It always offends me when someone has a tin ear.

This is part of why I like PZ, of course. The guy’s a really good writer. We talked about writing last night. He’s working on his book…and it’s hard work, writing a book. I said that for awhile, but then I did a 180 and said yes but you know how to do it, for chrissake.

On my intuitive reading, Jean made an error (i.e., to believe in the TJ case) that led her into making a mistake (i.e., to assume that Mooney had checked the facts prior to posting).

OK. Not my point. This would be relatively minor were it not for the larger context, both immediate and more general. I’ve described the general context above, calling attention to some elements that I don’t think have received enough and that are significant in assessing ethical responsibilities. But she did not just make and run with this one assumption. (My insisting upon this point was the result of acute SIWOTI and amazement that she was condescendingly making this a central matter when she was plainly wrong about it.) She tried to make the fact that he did not investigate a story of this sort before championing it on his blog appear to be of no ethical import. Indeed, she argued that, whatever the later revelations, Mooney had evidence at the time that lent strong corroboration and credibility to the story. It began to appear to me early on that what she was referring to was simply evidence of TJ’s identity, about which TJ had been a little shady from the start, and that he could have attended or did attend such an event. This, she argued, was enough to make the tropey, shifting, implausible story plausible and even probable (though they all talked about the “secret evidence” as though it was more than this, which we now know it wasn’t). It was this insistence and this defense of Mooney’s actions that I consider unethical. If she really thinks that in this historical and political-cultural context it’s sufficient, as I said above, “to assume probability from plausibility, or plausibility simply from the lack of impossibility” while ignoring the implausible elements and lack of substantiating evidence (or trying to seek out such evidence) in promoting a story of this nature, then she has a screwed up sense of ethics. If she doesn’t, as I suspect, and is cynically arguing it in this case to suppotr her friend or line, then she’s being dishonest and unethical. I hope that makes it more clear.

Mooney’s and TB’s actions are far worse, but they don’t present themselves as ethicists.

Because she’s a philosopher by training, she seems to be going back and forth between a) having a cooperative discussion and b) shutting people down.

I don’t believe that’s why.

The latter (b) is dogmatic, and probably unethical. Fine. Platitude.

That isn’t the basis for my argument in any case.

However, this isn’t a useful point.

What isn’t? That isn’t my argument.

Ophelia and others are going to look at my intuitive reading and say that I’ve got my errors confused with my mistakes.

Who was talking about your intuitive reading? Again, I made a specific case that isn’t the same as what you’re saying here; neither is it intuitive.

They’re going to say — plausibly, especially in hindsight– that Jean and Mooney both made a mistake by giving any credence to the TJ story in the first place, quite like the Anglos [?] in Cohen’s story who stroke their beards and entertain anti-Semitic fictions.

WTF? Yes, that’s my argument. Which you’re not addressing.

Well, my point to you (in this case), and to Wood (for most cases), is first to say: forget ethics for a minute, epistemology is the problem.

And my point to you is that that’s a silly point.

I stress this point, in this concrete context, because I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe that any group would behave like scum in an academic setting. I expect people to be angry about things they care about, and have experienced plenty of people behaving badly in those contexts.

What on earth are you on about?

Finally — to get to the bolded part of your text — I don’t see what else we have to appeal to when we have opinionated talk about probability of an unobserved case happening in some way, besides more opinionated talk about plausibility.

What? The ethical approach in such a case is to acknowledge that you’re probably likely to be credulous about stories that serve your interests or appeal to your biases and not to tell tales like this, especially about marginalized groups subject to stereotyping, without substantiating them. If you can’t, then you shouldn’t repeat them in the way he did and she defends. He could have appealed to evidence, like Coyne did. Sheesh.

Oph, most of this is just me reflecting on that October conversation. When I first read TJ’s fanciful tale of grim and woe, I didn’t doubt it. (I didn’t believe it, either — I just assumed, ‘Okay, I guess this happened, so what?’) But that epistemic recklessness is what’s under dispute, or it was at some point in the conversation, and on that point I couldn’t help but grunt in ambivalence.

Perhaps I’ve had a singularly unique education. My former university had a lot of protests; I was in lots of big ones. Helped organize em too. Also, I’m generally afraid of American anti-intellectualism, and so I assume that liberal professors in the South have to become aggressive in order to survive. I suppose that’s how my sense of plausibility translated into a sense of probability, without me really thinking about it very much.

Assuming there was a mistake there, and not just an error. Maybe I made an error while they made mistakes, since I don’t seem to have any reason to want to believe that people act in that way. But if so, it’s inscrutable, and hard to talk about seriously, unless we have access to Cal Lightman.

Assuming there were a mistake there, and not just an error, the ‘tin ear’ thing strikes me as making the most principled sense of that. The maudlin, the horror, the bad writing. By habit, I try to ignore those things and try to see what’s beneath.

But I don’t think I have a tin ear, exactly. Or maybe I do, but only for a particular genre — perhaps I’m more tuned into argumentative styles instead of forms of prose. Signal vs. William, for instance. Signal’s replies at B&W have this feeling of Adultness to them — for lack of a better word. (His blog posts don’t necessarily, but his replies do.) A willingness to concede, to draw specific boundaries around what he wants to argue while still addressing your point, that kind of thing — a level of intellectual engagement. By contrast, William’s sock-puppets were mostly infantile — though the TJ sock was the most Adultish among them, owing to its earnest tone. But he had a strictly-Q-and-A quality to him — always keeping the discussion on a narrow track. (I thought nothing of that, though; plenty of respectable people fit that profile.) Hm.

Oph, most of this is just me reflecting on that October conversation. When I first read TJ’s fanciful tale of grim and woe, I didn’t doubt it. (I didn’t believe it, either — I just assumed, ‘Okay, I guess this happened, so what?’) But that epistemic recklessness is what’s under dispute, or it was at some point in the conversation, and on that point I couldn’t help but grunt in ambivalence.

This is a bit surprising, but in any event Mooney did not simply think “So what?” and grunt in ambivalence. He used it as an opportunity to publicly promote his agenda and self at atheists’ expense. Different.

Also, I’m generally afraid of American anti-intellectualism, and so I assume that liberal professors in the South have to become aggressive in order to survive. I suppose that’s how my sense of plausibility translated into a sense of probability, without me really thinking about it very much.

Behaving like that toward Baptists in a place like Alabama would not be a survival strategy. Quite the opposite.

Assuming there was a mistake there, and not just an error. Maybe I made an error while they made mistakes, since I don’t seem to have any reason to want to believe that people act in that way. But if so, it’s inscrutable, and hard to talk about seriously, unless we have access to Cal Lightman.

Mooney could have investigated the story and not posted about it without good evidence. Coyne did.

SC, so long as you take what I’m talking about to be a “silly point”, you’re going to continue to be at a loss to see how it affects yours.

I question the assumption that, when it came to the TJ story as it was first presented, there was evidence to disbelieve it. Or, at the very least, I have a tin ear to that (literary) evidence, and am in the same truck as Jean and Mooney were. And, from my point of view, that makes the case radically dis-analogous from Cohen’s anecdote.

In my view, this makes problems for both you and Wood. To be perfectly explicit. You’ve both jumped the gun into ethics, in your own ways — you in the concrete case, Wood in the abstract one. Evidentialism leaves too many unanswered questions and complications. Since this is one such case, you and Wood had better both attend to it.

Unless, of course, I’m just wrong. I might have defective faculties, a tin ear, etc. At the moment, I have only a hazy view of how the fraud-detection thing works — though Ophelia has an interesting point and useful things to say. But then again, she has a habit of taking serious matters seriously.

I question the assumption that, when it came to the TJ story as it was first presented, there was evidence to disbelieve it. Or, at the very least, I have a tin ear to that (literary) evidence, and am in the same truck as Jean and Mooney were. And, from my point of view, that makes the case radically dis-analogous from Cohen’s anecdote.

No. (Well, you do seem to have something of a literary and social tin ear.) With the caveats I noted above, I think it’s very similar to the cases Cohen is talking about. You shouldn’t need “evidence to disbelieve” a story (especially a stereotypical one) about a marginalized group to not assert its truth or plausibility. To transfer Cohen’s point:

Why the tendency to assume that atheists may, after all, have cheerfully attacked Christians at their event? Why not assume just as plausibly that (accepting) the charge results from ingrained beliefs about atheists in general, and the myth of New Atheist belligerence in particular? In other words, why not begin with an entirely contrary premise: that there exists no good reason to suppose that Thomas of Johnson’s tale, teeming with extreme claims and inconsistencies as it is, accurately records the conservation events?

… [When dealing with potentially inciting claims about marginalized groups,] one cannot allow oneself – neither on critical nor on ethical grounds – to assume probability from plausibility, or plausibility simply from the lack of impossibility.

A significant difference here is that Mooney had the full opportunity not only to say nothing about it but to investigate prior to posting about it. It’s not a story from 1144 – there was full opportunity to determine if it was true. (And even when it was clear that it was not true, he continued to insist, perversely, that it could be.)

In my view, this makes problems for both you and Wood. To be perfectly explicit. You’ve both jumped the gun into ethics, in your own ways — you in the concrete case, Wood in the abstract one. Evidentialism leaves too many unanswered questions and complications. Since this is one such case, you and Wood had better both attend to it.

To be perfectly explicit, I still don’t know what you’re talking about. What are the unanswered questions and complications to which you’re referring, specifically and concretely? Ignore Wood – talk about this specific case.

Unless, of course, I’m just wrong. I might have defective faculties, a tin ear, etc. At the moment, I have only a hazy view of how the fraud-detection thing works — though Ophelia has an interesting point and useful things to say. But then again, she has a habit of taking serious matters seriously.

Well, I’m a historical sociologist, Cohen’s a historian, and Mooney styles himself a journalist. The fraud-detection thing works by having good reason to make or repeat claims, and not to do so if you don’t. It also works by engaging honestly with people who bring forth contrary evidence. Allegations of this sort carry special ethical weight, and should be dealt with responsibly.

She also has, to be perfectly blunt for a moment, a pretty good track record in this kind of thing. (Though not perfect – I did get Signal wrong.) I spotted a lot of specific things wrong with the YNH blog, and I mentioned many of them at the time. I suspected it was fake, and most of the comments were fake, early in the game, and I went on suspecting it. Its hostility to me was a motive, but it’s entirely possible to be hostile to me without being fake, and I don’t see fakery in all hostility to me.

So…….at present I’m inclined to trust my judgment that there were obvious signs that TJ’s story was fake, and that it shouldn’t have been all that hard for other people to be at least cautious. To put it another way, I have a really hard time not seeing it that way. The fakery jumps out at me.

The fraud-detection thing works by having good reason to make or repeat claims, and not to do so if you don’t.

That’s a good point. We should all be good at fraud-detection – it’s one of the tools in the critical thinking kit. Being bad at it isn’t really something to boast of, or to defend as somehow ethical. Being too suspicious is not good, but being good at detecting fraud is not bad.

TJ and Mooney used this fraud to try to harm a group of people. That’s the bottom line – that’s why we’re het up about it, that’s always been why we think it matters. That isn’t a praiseworthy thing to do. It may be just a mistake to have failed to realize that, but…well, I don’t believe it was in their case.

Last week, the New Atheist comment machine targeted the following post, in which I republished a preexisting blog comment from a scientist [ahem] named “Tom Johnson” (a psuedonym). In the comment, Johnson had related how some of his New Atheist-inspired scientist colleagues had behaved toward religious folks at bridge-building conservation events.

The comment obviously reflected one individual’s experience and point of view, and nothing more. But it struck me as worth highlighting, in light of my many well known concerns about the New Atheist movement.

I’m a bit surprised how much hoopla the simple elevating of a comment into an individual post, with minimal additional commentary, has caused. Clearly, Johnson really touched a nerve. Accordingly, my post unfortunately subjected him to various attacks; fortunately his real identity remains unknown (though I am aware of it).

In light of all this, this post is simply to thank “Johnson” for commenting here, for sharing his story, and for being willing to defend it as vigorously as he has done. It is one person’s perspective, but as I said before, I consider it a striking one. I’m glad we’ve heard it, and I hope Johnson and others like him will continue to comment here on science, religion, and the New Atheism, despite the heat it can sometimes cause.

Ben Nelson wrote: I question the assumption that, when it came to the TJ story as it was first presented, there was evidence to disbelieve it.

Why would you need evidence to disbelieve a completely outlandish and unsupported story? You may as well say you need evidence to disbelieve in God. Have you ever been to a scientific conference of any sort? Have you ever even heard of behavior remotely resembling that which TJ described? When I first saw the comment I laughed and thought that no one could ever believe such a tale and that would be the end of it. Then Mooney went ballistic with it and it spiraled into the debacle it became. But when it first appeared only someone who wanted desperately to advance an agenda could possibly have given it any credence.

SC, I did apply it to this case. I’ll rephrase them with a mind to your recent comments.

Part of the reason why you’re misreading me, I think, is that you’re focused on the incident as a whole instead of a section of it. To be clear: I think that Mooney is incompetent and unethical, and everything from the decision to raise up the comment to right this very moment has been a mistake. Surely everyone here agrees on that.

So now let’s focus on my problem with your treatment of Cohen’s quote. My problem is that you’re not taking it seriously. The fact of the matter is that in a case that lacks evidence, youhaveto assume probability from plausibility — for critical purposes or otherwise. This is not optional. When someone tells a story, I’m obliged to either take its likelihood as a function of what my sense of the plausible tells me, or abstain from judgment.

Now my sense of plausibility turned out to be off the mark in this case. It turns out to be an asset in others.

That failure in this case could be either an error or a mistake. Assume it was a mistake. Out of a desire for self-growth, I want to improve my sense of the plausible in some principled way. I am annoyed at being wrong, and happily admit being wrong, under pressure from no-one and perfectly out-of-the-blue. You can take that as a request for thoughtful input, if you have any.

However, if there’s no way for me — or a smarter, more sociable version of me — to improve that sense of plausibility, then I don’t know if your correct judgment about TJ was just a lucky result of invidious thinking. If that were so, then I’d be justified in shrugging it off, as Jean evidently has.

Without sarcastic or snotty intent, I have to say I’m at a loss as to how you found TJ’s original story plausible at all. I’m at a loss as to how anyone could not have found it highly implausible, for all the reasons others have cited above.

Ophelia has it right – it was vaudevillian. Ridiculous, over the top, hackneyed. Seriously:

Many of my colleagues are fans of Dawkins, PZ, and their ilk and make a point AT CONSERVATION EVENTS to mock the religious to their face, shout forced laughter at them, and call them “stupid,” “ignorant” and the like – and these are events hosted by religious moderates where we’ve been ASKED to attend. They think it’s the way to be a good scientist, after all.

Sit with that for a minute. Remember that these people are alleged to be working scientists at a major university. Remember that they are alleged to be engaging in this behavior as invited guests at a professional event focusing on conservation. Does that sort of behavior strike you as likely for any working academics you know? “Shout forced laughter?” Calling them ignorant and stupid, to their faces, at a public professional event?

Ben, that story is just fucking stupid and that ought to be obvious to anyone.

So in Jean Kazez’ “Correction,” posted at 10:44 PM on the 27th, she says,

A new rule at this blog. We will never ever use the words “sock puppet” or “Tom Johnson” again.

Then, at 9:48 AM on the 28th, Jean Kazez makes a comment on her “Tom Johnson Chapter 368” post which mentions “TJ.” Kazez couldn’t even keep to the spirit of her own rule for 12 hours.

And that seems to sum up her arguments against me, also. With both the “obstructing justice” thing and her comments here about the “advisor” business, she is relying upon semantic arguments and ignoring the obviously intended points. Has this been normal for her, or is this some New Normal?

Anyway, I tried to post this comment to that latter thread last night, in response to her comment timestamped July 26, 2010 2:27 AM:

Jean Kazez wrote:

“Obstructing justice” is impeding an ongoing investigation. I was doing no such thing by not reporting this student to his honor council. There was no ongoing investigation to impede.

Are you seriously telling me that you couldn’t parse my meaning, despite its context, and instead need to now resort to the above semantic argument?

As for some duty to report–I see this as an internal matter. Making sure that some student conforms to the internal standards set by his university is not my responsibility. I may or may not agree with those standards. I don’t have any input into what they are. It’s just not my problem to help other schools enforce their standards.

Obviously I take a much broader ethical view than you. I would have felt a duty to report. You would have been okay with sitting on your hands. You obviously have a right to do so, I just don’t think it’s a right that anyone should be particularly satisfied with exercising and/or justifying.

As to knowing about the adviser– I was certainly under no obligation to share that fact with anyone, let alone anonymous people (like you).

I never said you were under any obligation to tell me anything. I said that you had the power to forestall a lot of the “baying for blood” that you and others have been complaining about, but that you chose instead to do nothing.

End of that subject.

I understand completely.

And since my comment has vanished into the bit-bucket, my understanding really is complete.

Tomh, to answer your questions. a) It’s unexpected but not outlandish. b) I have been to a few scientific conferences, though that’s not relevant because the fabricated story was supposed to be a kind of outreach effort on the subject of conservation. c) Yes I have attended (and participated in) many academic demonstrations involving students and faculty, though none at conferences made up solely of professional scientists.

Josh, I’ve re-read the passage and had a minor revelation. There is a bit of wishful thinking on my part. A part of me wishes that people would treat others that way when the stakes are this high. (And this is not a delusion — like I said, I’m an activist, and demonstrations are routine and disruptive.) I want people to be faced with the full consequences of their ideas. I want people to be loud when things are going so completely wrong. I want them to shout, “Your mega-churches are destroying our world and everything that matters.” Etc. I am terrified at silence and overjoyed by intelligence with a heart and a megaphone.

Did you, or do you still, think that the situation described by Tom Johnson can be construed as some form of demonstration and that the “activists” involved displayed a level of intelligence or passion by which you would be overjoyed?

Part of the reason why you’re misreading me, I think, is that you’re focused on the incident as a whole instead of a section of it.

Since you were responding to my post initially, I think I can determine the focus here. And for me that was always the episode as a whole.

To be clear: I think that Mooney is incompetent and unethical, and everything from the decision to raise up the comment to right this very moment has been a mistake. Surely everyone here agrees on that.

Then why are you yapping about epistemic assertibility and Cliffordian intuitions? My argument was about Mooney, Kazez, and TB. I was saying that they’ve dealt with this in an unethical way, aside from any particular professional standards. If you don’t think her defense and continuation of his unethical actions also constituted unethical behavior, then that’s a discussion we can have. But enough with the syllables already.

So now let’s focus on my problem with your treatment of Cohen’s quote. My problem is that you’re not taking it seriously.

Pardon?

The fact of the matter is that in a case that lacks evidence, youhaveto assume probability from plausibility — for critical purposes or otherwise. This is not optional. When someone tells a story, I’m obliged to either take its likelihood as a function of what my sense of the plausible tells me, or abstain from judgment.

No. Plausibility is required for probability, but not sufficient, and certainly probability doesn’t necessarily follow from it. Second, you’re ignoring the next part of that, which is that plausibility shouldn’t be inferred from non-impossibility, especially in the absence of corroborating evidence, when a story is an instance of a stereotyped trope of a marginalized group, when it contains implausible elements, and when it suits people’s biases and interests. The scholars Cohen mentions can discuss how the narratives in question “work” socially; as he says, there is no good reason to grant them any truth value, or even to nod in this direction given the countervailing contextual evidence, and a responsible scholar should explicitly note this. But importantly, as I noted above, a difference here is that for Mooney this was not a case that lacks evidence – he had every opportunity to investigate.

I’m a bit disturbed by your references to intuition and your “sense of the plausible.” Does evidence play any role in your evaluation of truth claims? You’ve implied the Wood is missing something important, but it seems to me that you’re the one who’s not appreciating his point.

Please address what I’ve argued about Kazez or Mooney.

Now my sense of plausibility turned out to be off the mark in this case. It turns out to be an asset in others.

No. You’re missing the point. This is not about intuition.

That failure in this case could be either an error or a mistake. Assume it was a mistake. Out of a desire for self-growth, I want to improve my sense of the plausible in some principled way. I am annoyed at being wrong, and happily admit being wrong, under pressure from no-one and perfectly out-of-the-blue. You can take that as a request for thoughtful input, if you have any.

However, if there’s no way for me — or a smarter, more sociable version of me — to improve that sense of plausibility, then I don’t know if your correct judgment about TJ was just a lucky result of invidious thinking. If that were so, then I’d be justified in shrugging it off, as Jean evidently has.

Dude, we weren’t talking about you. We were talking about Mooney and Kazez, who were in a different position than you.

But of course there are ways to to improve that sense of plausibility. Well, perhaps not the initial sense (or perhaps so), but the actions you take. You can start by rethinking your position as stated above on inferring probability from plausibility and plausibility from non-impossibility. And by attending to what’s being said about evidence and countervailing opinions. Anyway, I’ve noted more than once above the actions Mooney should have taken.

A part of me wishes that people would treat others that way when the stakes are this high. (And this is not a delusion — like I said, I’m an activist, and demonstrations are routine and disruptive.)

These are contradictory :).

I want people to be faced with the full consequences of their ideas. I want people to be loud when things are going so completely wrong. I want them to shout, “Your mega-churches are destroying our world and everything that matters.” Etc. I am terrified at silence and overjoyed by intelligence with a heart and a megaphone.

Great general principle. You want atheist scientists and science grad students to attend these sorts of religious-organized events and to act in the way TJ narrated?

(Oh…by the way…since when do religious people need to be courted to concern themselves with conservation, especially when they’re hosting events on the subject?)

b) I have been to a few scientific conferences, though that’s not relevant because the fabricated story was supposed to be a kind of outreach effort on the subject of conservation.

This makes the tale even more outlandish.

***

Hmm. This is interesting. I think much of what you, Benjamin, are presenting as intuition is really in some sense contextual privilege or the lack thereof. If you’re part of a less powerful group, you have a bullshit detector that’s more easily set off by stereotyped stories about your group. If I hear similar tales about women, I’m likely to look suspiciously at them. I know the risks and am likely to assess the plausibility based on this. If I were gay or black or Jewish I would probably be similarly immediately attuned to possibly-bullshit stories in those cases (as it is I have to work at it). For members of dominant groups, that initial skepticism is usually lacking, and these groups have been prone to exaggerate and fabricate the aggression of subordinate groups. And of course, marginalized groups live in and absord the dominant culture, so that “intuition” isn’t a given. But the point is that the ethical responsibility lies not in the initial, culturally- and positionally-shaped “intuitive” response, but in the efforts to find and confront the evidence before forming our positions and making public statements.

Benjamin, I’m with you on wishing there were more activism, for sure. I just wouldn’t see TJ’s tale as an instance of activism, even if it had been true. Those actions would have been plain rude, shocking, inappropriate, and would accomplish nothing but make explicit atheists look bad (which, of course, is exactly what his *fabrication* did, thanks to Mooney – god I loathe him).

SC makes an excellent point about members of despised groups having finely tuned bullshit detectors.

Without sarcastic or snotty intent, I have to say I’m at a loss as to how you found TJ’s original story plausible at all. I’m at a loss as to how anyone could not have found it highly implausible, for all the reasons others have cited above.

Ophelia has it right – it was vaudevillian. Ridiculous, over the top, hackneyed. Seriously:

Many of my colleagues are fans of Dawkins, PZ, and their ilk and make a point AT CONSERVATION EVENTS to mock the religious to their face, shout forced laughter at them, and call them “stupid,” “ignorant” and the like – and these are events hosted by religious moderates where we’ve been ASKED to attend. They think it’s the way to be a good scientist, after all.

Sit with that for a minute. Remember that these people are alleged to be working scientists at a major university. Remember that they are alleged to be engaging in this behavior as invited guests at a professional event focusing on conservation. Does that sort of behavior strike you as likely for any working academics you know? “Shout forced laughter?” Calling them ignorant and stupid, to their faces, at a public professional event?

Ben, that story is just fucking stupid and that ought to be obvious to anyone.

PRECISELY.

I have worked in and around academe (in the U.S.–OR, NY, TX, MA, MI) for a number of years, and attended many scientific colloquia and a fair share of outreach events to other disciplines & backgrounds, merely as a result of being a leading-edge baby boomer and thus living in the proverbial interesting times. I’ve worked with or for my share of , uh, strongly opinionated professionals, even sat through more than a few shouting matches, but still find TJ’s fabrications ludicrously implausible.

(As I type this, Salty, one thing does spring to mind that perhaps came closer to TJ-land than anything else I can think of–the incident of Zuska being shouted down by Gee…That wasn’t exactly a ‘conservation event,’ tho. And it raised a stink, in part because so many were appalled at the behavior. And dog knows, there was no shortage of confirming witnesses!)

Smith, no, no joy in it. Sympathy, though — yes, certainly. No question. How can you not?

You don’t have to answer that. It’s an overly personal question.

SC, it certainly does have to do with intuitive reactions. It has to. The non-Jewish writers consciously disbelieved in Thomas’s report, yet maintained the anti-Semitic possibility. What do you call the mental state that motivates people to entertain the tacitly anti-Semitic option? If it’s not an intuition, what is it? A belief, maybe, for some anti-Semites. But surely it must be part of his point that not all these authors were anti-Semitic, and yet they were drawn to a peculiar opinion.

Mea culpa: you’re right to point out the ‘possibility to plausibility’ bit. I didn’t focus on it, and should have. In the absence of evidence, you aren’t forced to proceed from possibility to plausibility. That involves making a choice. But that just shows another way that the present case and the Cohen case don’t match, so it’s not salient.

It’s obviously true that evidence comes into justified belief, when evidence is available. But notice that this is a case in which there is no evidence. You can only infer to the best explanation — in other words, the plausible becomes the probable. (Recall the first half of Dawkins’s TGD?)

I don’t think Jean is right. But I do think she may be stuck on her initial intuitive reaction. It’s nice and robust and useful and non-myopic to look at that. And I suspect that her reaction was something like mine, which is one reason why this bit of navel-gazing was worth bringing up. (Though I doubt her passions are anything like mine.)

I don’t condone the non-actions of the fabricated, shouty little men. They do not appear in any ethical principles. But yes, I sympathize. Lots. And if I didn’t have that anger, I suspect I would be more sympathetic to the accommodationist crowd.

SC, you have no idea what you’re talking about, as I’ve explained. An E.O. Wilson talk is the most vivid recollection, recently. (Though evidently Wilson himself was quite nice, people in the room were not.)

Josh/Diane, have you honestly never seen people shouted down at academic Q&A’s? I mean, never? Never heard about it? Really? Because I’ve been there, done that.

(As I type this, Salty, one thing does spring to mind that perhaps came closer to TJ-land than anything else I can think of–the incident of Zuska being shouted down by Gee…That wasn’t exactly a ‘conservation event,’ tho. And it raised a stink, in part because so many were appalled at the behavior. And dog knows, there was no shortage of confirming witnesses!)

Holy Gnu! Were you there? (Of course, those were bloggers. We’re capable of anything. :P)

***

SC, it certainly does have to do with intuitive reactions. It has to.

Nope. “It” – our ethics – has to do with our appreciation of and grappling with with the blindnesses caused by our (privileged) social position (what you call intuition) and the extent to which we face this and try to actively and honestly gather and assess evidence in forming and presenting our views.

No. They disbelieve – these are contemporary scholars – in the ritual-murder aspect, but fail to actively question the plausibility of a factual basis. (Jews lived in Norwich! He had associated with them! They may have been hostile to Christians!)

What do you call the mental state that motivates people to entertain the tacitly anti-Semitic option? If it’s not an intuition, what is it?

Again, the influence of the dominant culture, frequently compounded by privilege. (Where do you think mental states concerning social matters originate?) That’s all that Cohen argues. The point is that in order to act ethically in such cases it’s necessary to overcome this by requiring evidence – good reason to make a claim.

A belief, maybe, for some anti-Semites. But surely it must be part of his point that not all these authors were anti-Semitic, and yet they were drawn to a peculiar opinion.

Yes, that’s Cohen’s point, with which I agree. They’re drawn to it because it fits with existing unexamined stereotypes and often responds to certain political and psychological needs. It’s accepted most easily by people in the dominant group because it serves their interests. Nothing to do with intuition. What do you think intuition is? That people are subject to stereotypes and biases is understandable. That the stereotypes and biases aren’t examined by historians when they should be is what compromises these scholars ethically.

Mea culpa: you’re right to point out the ‘possibility to plausibility’ bit. I didn’t focus on it, and should have. In the absence of evidence, you aren’t forced to proceed from possibility to plausibility. That involves making a choice.

Virtually everything involves making a choice.

But that just shows another way that the present case and the Cohen case don’t match, so it’s not salient.

What? Scholars make choices. If they’re ethical, the choices about the presentation of history dealing with marginalized groups are based on evidence, and they don’t uncritically accept “intuition.”

It’s obviously true that evidence comes into justified belief, when evidence is available. But notice that this is a case in which there is no evidence.

What is? Neither of these cases is such.

You can only infer to the best explanation — in other words, the plausible becomes the probable. (Recall the first half of Dawkins’s TGD?)

?

I don’t think Jean is right. But I do think she may be stuck on her initial intuitive reaction.

This isn’t some imposed condition. All she has to do is acknowledge that Mooney did not base the allegations on evidence when he should have required it. It’s a choice. She can act differently.

It’s nice and robust and useful and non-myopic to look at that. And I suspect that her reaction was something like mine, which is one reason why this bit of navel-gazing was worth bringing up. (Though I doubt her passions are anything like mine.)

?

I don’t condone the non-actions of the fabricated, shouty little men. They do not appear in any ethical principles. But yes, I sympathize. Lots. And if I didn’t have that anger, I suspect I would be more sympathetic to the accommodationist crowd.

SC, you have no idea what you’re talking about, as I’ve explained. An E.O. Wilson talk is the most vivid recollection, recently. (Though evidently Wilson himself was quite nice, people in the room were not.)

Gah! What is this in response to?

Josh/Diane, have you honestly never seen people shouted down at academic Q&A’s? I mean, never? Never heard about it? Really? Because I’ve been there, done that.

You seem to have a problem moving amongst different levels of abstraction and specificity.

Josh/Diane, have you honestly never seen people shouted down at academic Q&A’s? I mean, never? Never heard about it? Really? Because I’ve been there, done that.

Come on Ben, you know better than that, and it’s really irritating for you to do that kind of silly conflation. You know we’re not talking about rought and tumble academic discourse. We’re talking about an alleged group of people who “shouted forced laughter” and called other attendees “idiots” in public for their religious beliefs. Why are you acting like that’s the same thing as a heated symposium where people sometimes shout about academic issues they’re debating.

Josh/Diane, have you honestly never seen people shouted down at academic Q&A’s? I mean, never? Never heard about it? Really? Because I’ve been there, done that

Did you miss this, Ben?:

I’ve worked with or for my share of , uh, strongly opinionated professionals, even sat through more than a few shouting matches, but still find TJ’s fabrications ludicrously implausible.

And I wholly second Salty’s contention that behavior to the extent & specifics that TJ describes, had it really occurred in the locale & context specified, would hardly have gone unremarked in the larger media/blogosphere.

Let me just say this too on the original TJ story. It is very unlikely through not impossible. That is to the point though. See many people here are working academics and we know academic culture. Yes there are people with poor social skills in academe, but we also have certain standard courtesies.

Forced laughter and telling people who invited you to their face that they are idiots is not believable because it is an outright breach of that etiquette. But this to me isn’t even the most direct give-away that it was made up.

This: “Many of my colleagues are fans of Dawkins, PZ, and their ilk and make a point AT CONSERVATION EVENTS to mock the religious to their face”

Now, here is the problem. The story tries to construct a link from “Dawkins, PZ and “their ilk” to behavior that goes against that etiquette. And that link has all the hearsay and fuzzy qualities of someone who just thinks badly about certain people and wants to blame them. See even if someone was rude, it in no way reflects on Dawkins, PZ or whoever “their ilk” is. But that’s not what the TJ story claims and it is not why Chris Mooney elevated it. In fact it got elevated exactly because people wanted to implicate “Dawkins, PZ and their ilk”.

That is the problem. The whole thing from the beginning was all about having shmutz stick to Dawkins etc and it was obviously wrong from the get-go. That on top of it it was an outright fabrication to create the case for the implication does make it worse, but does not at all mean that it would have been OK even if it was true.

But smearing people is pretty standard in our society. Political campaigns and much of opinion TV is based on these tactics. It’s a shame and should be resisted and exposed for what it is.

Now, here is the problem. The story tries to construct a link from “Dawkins, PZ and “their ilk” to behavior that goes against that etiquette. And that link has all the hearsay and fuzzy qualities of someone who just thinks badly about certain people and wants to blame them. See even if someone was rude, it in no way reflects on Dawkins, PZ or whoever “their ilk” is. But that’s not what the TJ story claims and it is not why Chris Mooney elevated it. In fact it got elevated exactly because people wanted to implicate “Dawkins, PZ and their ilk”.

That’s precisely it, Hitch. It’s why Mooney found it so irresistible and tuned out the voice of his better journalist in the back of his head. It goes to the heart of his claims and it’s the only think close to evidence he’s ever managed to lay his hands on.

Moreover, it was more than a little suggestive that TJ was saying exactly what he knew Mooney wanted to hear.

I would chalk things up to my collegaues generally being combative people, but when I ask them about why they feel that they need to chastise the faithful when they’ve asked us to come help (trust me, we have heated discussions), they directly quote PZ Meyers, Jerry Coyne (especially), and Dawkins as why it should be a “good” scientist’s job these days to attack the faithful – no matter how moderate the faithful may be.

On the subject of intuition and social conditions. We don’t agree, but I’m not sure why. The social conditions are there, and they translate into faulty intuitions (for certain interesting cases). You deny this. I don’t know why.

Well, indulge me, will you? Assume, for the moment, that these conditions led to faulty intuitions. My point is that in the absence of evidence, you only have only got those intuitions to work with, and they determine what you’re going to call probable. You can choose to refrain from even making a provisional judgment — you can stop yourself from saying, “this is possible therefore plausible”, if there isn’t anything around that you can call evidence. But once you have a sense of what’s plausible, and there’s no other evidence around, you’ve got no alternative but to think it’s probable.

Here’s another way of putting the same point. Assume there isn’t sufficient evidence. Then:

Possible –!– Plausible <—> Probable

The exclamation point represents a prudential choice. It involves what we might call reasonable belief. The arrow represents an inevitable and justified inference, in the absence of further evidence.

I think we, in good faith, have to go from plausible to probable. By contrast, you think we choose all along the way. For you, there’s no arrow between plausibility and probability, there are only two exclamation points.

Down to earth translation: because of my experiences, I thought the story was somewhat plausible, and so I thought it was somewhat probable. You are arguing that I (and the other dupes) should’ve waited for investigation before treating it as probable. But that’s hypocricy. Nobody else refrained in that way — if you thought it was implausible, you thought it was improbable too. As far as the case goes, we were all equally in the dark, though we have different backgrounds.

(Incidentally, although this doesn’t matter very much, I skirted your remark about privilege because it offensively, and wrongly, supposed that I am not a part of a minority group. I have been visibly disabled for half my life, and invisibly disabled for the other half. Maybe this disability is relevant, but I don’t want to talk about it since, unlike what I’ve said so far, that really would be self-indulgent.)

I’d love to explain subjective probability theory / the Dawkins connection, inference to the best explanation, evidentialism, etc., but you’ve explicitly admitted that you’re having trouble following anything abstract and how to connect it with the present case. I tried my best to put the relevant parts in concrete language, but I simply have no meaningful reply to question marks. No doubt you’re capable of thinking about it, just not right now. Perhaps some other time.

Josh/Diane, to be quite clear, at the E.O. Wilson talk I mentioned, a colleague of mine was shouted down, heckled, had paper balls thrown at him, etc., for making an unpopular quasi-Marxist comment. To be sure, there were other factors involved there which contributed to the result. But I really can’t distinguish between shouting matches of a certain kind and forced abuse. Perhaps you can. I envy that.

Smith, yes with (1), not sure about (2). I sympathize with people that confront those who are stuck in the bunker. On the subject of conservation, especially, a certain segment of the population is ruining the world because they hold uncritical, dogmatic, mistaken views.

You noticed, rightly, that I said a careless thing back then. So why didn’t I go on with it? Because I thought it was only somewhat plausible, somewhat probable.

But we have no upset about that, because well it’s a “New Atheist”/Templeton critic being shouted down. Schermer did break academic etiquette as I see it and I do not see that fervent demand for an apology very often, but yes I may be in different academic circles.

As I said stuff happens. But the whole point is that we do not go around and make Michael Schermer into a case that justifies how all people who defend Templeton will shout you down or how Michael Schermer reflects poorly or is a bad role model and all those who agree with him on some point.

These improper generalizations are at stake and frankly I have no idea why you spend all this energy defending the possibility of meaness happens (yes it does) when clearly that is not the problem. The problem is that people try really really hard to smear New Atheists as aggressive and then discredit them, when that clearly is not unique to new atheism and the way that case is constructed is clearly loaded.

For example Mooney called Dawkins a bully in his book. Should we make that into a case how rude Mooney is and try to generalize that onto a whole group to which Mooney is constructed to belong to?

The whole thing is really frivolous and I am a little dismayed that people keep playing.

And don’t forget, we know quite a bit about what is true. So why are we keeping hypotheticals alive when all that does is keep shmutz on one group that people try really hard to throw shmutz at?

Either have a case or don’t. Don’t say it’s possible. Lots is possible. Insinuation by possibility in my mind is one of the worst smears out there, because it doesn’t even need evidence.

The classical Fox News trick. As a question. “Some ask, did X do *something undesirable*?” Well perhaps no, but just by asking the question it draws into question. That is not fair arguing, it is designed to brand people.

Please consider if you are engaging in this discussion from the right perspective, or if perhaps you feed into something that we should reject, namely unfair rhetoric tactics, branding, smearing and negative stereotyping.

Because of my occupation, I attend scientific conferences routinely; I have also attended satellite-science gatherings (industry, outreach) as well as non-scientific gatherings where there were stormy debates (for example, early Mars Society conventions where the Manifest Destiny aspect of Zubrin’s plan was a focus of heated discussions). In none of these have I witnessed even remotely the behavior described by “Johnson”. There is indeed an etiquette. Those who don’t follow it are simply not invited back — and their name gets widely circulated.

On the subject of intuition and social conditions. We don’t agree, but I’m not sure why. The social conditions are there, and they translate into faulty intuitions (for certain interesting cases). You deny this. I don’t know why.

What the hell are you talking about? I’m saying that this idea of individual “intuitions” or “senses of plausibility” is based on a failure to appreciate how these are shaped by culture and different social positions and locations. You’re just calling this intuition. As Cohen says in my original post on this: “The answer lies in the power of the Christ-killer myth itself, the extent to which it has permeated the Western way of thinking about Jews, not only in the Middle Ages among churchmen but even in modern times among historians.”

Well, indulge me, will you? Assume, for the moment, that these conditions led to faulty intuitions.

What conditions? For whom?

My point is that in the absence of evidence, you

What the hell is the context you’re talking about? Does it have anything to do with Mooney or Kazez? Does it have to do with the historians who discuss Middle-Age myths about Jewish ritual murder?

only have only got those intuitions to work with, and they determine what you’re going to call probable. You can choose to refrain from even making a provisional judgment — you can stop yourself from saying, “this is possible therefore plausible”, if there isn’t anything around that you can call evidence. But once you have a sense of what’s plausible, and there’s no other evidence around, you’ve got no alternative but to think it’s probable.

Here’s another way of putting the same point. Assume there isn’t sufficient evidence. Then:

Possible –!– Plausible <—> Probable

The exclamation point represents a prudential choice. It involves what we might call reasonable belief. The arrow represents an inevitable and justified inference, in the absence of further evidence.

I think we, in good faith, have to go from plausible to probable. By contrast, you think we choose all along the way. For you, there’s no arrow between plausibility and probability, there are only two exclamation points.

Of course. Because what you’re arguing is simply wrong, and bizarre. Someone tells a tale, and in the absence of any evidence you think people are required to go from plausible to probable? That’s not prudent, nor is it acting in “good faith” (toward whom, exactly?); it’s just ridiculous. But in the two cases discussed there are other contextual factors that I’ve described above, so this attempt to abstract is annoying.

Down to earth translation: because of my experiences, I thought the story was somewhat plausible, and so I thought it was somewhat probable.

How many times do I have to say this? I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about Mooney, TB, and Kazez. But your experiences and reading of these experiences are shaped by your social position. Your “intuition” is not idiosyncratic. The “and so” here, again, is silly. But you’re ignoring my point: the ethics comes in not chiefly in people’s initial reactions (which may feel intuitive but are shaped by culture and position) but in how they act. We can and should work on gaining knowledge of other people’s experiences, especially those of people in less privileged groups, so as not to fall back on cultural and self-serving myths. But most importantly in cases like this we should examine our biases, seek out evidence in evaluating the truth of a story, and not repeat it if there isn’t good reason to believe it happened.

You are arguing that I (and the other dupes) should’ve waited for investigation before treating it as probable.

I wasn’t talking about you. But yes, you should have. And you should have pointed out, as others did, that there was no good reason to believe it. Because a story like this could harm people and relationships.

But that’s hypocricy. Nobody else refrained in that way

What? This is so confused it’s hurting my head. Explain where my alleged hypocrisy comes in. Then explain how other people allegedly finding this story plausible and therefore treating it as probable makes it OK for you to have done so. (Not that I was talking about you in the first place.)

— if you thought it was implausible, you thought it was improbable too.

I don’t think I even knew about this at the time (I may have, but I don’t recall it), so I didn’t think anything at all. But this is dumb: You claim that I found it implausible and so didn’t find it probable, but hypothetically if I had found it plausible I allegedly would have accepted it, so I’m a hypocrite?

As far as the case goes, we were all equally in the dark, though we have different backgrounds.

No, “we” weren’t. Mooney wasn’t, because he had the opportunity to investigate. But treating such allegations about a marginalized group like this (from any source, let alone an anonymous one on the internet) in the absence of evidence as probable is stupid and wrong.

(Incidentally, although this doesn’t matter very much, I skirted your remark about privilege because it offensively, and wrongly, supposed that I am not a part of a minority group. I have been visibly disabled for half my life, and invisibly disabled for the other half. Maybe this disability is relevant, but I don’t want to talk about it since, unlike what I’ve said so far, that really would be self-indulgent.)

It did no such thing. OK.

*deep breath*

I think this might be a teachable moment, so rather than reiterate what I was saying or asking you to reread my earlier comment (you may want to do that anyway), I’ll use this as an example. Because you’re a disabled person, you have a different position from which to evaluate claims about disabled people or acts of prejudice toward disabled people. Comments that I, who am not disabled, might pass over without taking note or stereotyped claims I might find plausible would probably be more readily noted or challenged by you. Your experience due to your status has likely shaped your “intuition” in this area, sharpening your critical awareness and your bullshit detector. Nevertheless, you live in the same culture with its myths and prejudices about disabled people as I do ,and so may accept some of them; so the detector isn’t perfect. And I can, and should (I try to, but probably not enough), read and talk with people with disabilities to raise my awareness so that I’m more likely to notice prejudices and stereotyped claims. My argument is that if Mooney and Kazez had a dislike for or axe to grind with disabled people and acted as they did with regard to a parallel accusation about them/you, it would have been unethical in exactly the same way it was here. And I would be wrong to accept such a tale as probable.

I’d love to explain subjective probability theory / the Dawkins connection, inference to the best explanation, evidentialism, etc., but you’ve explicitly admitted that you’re having trouble following anything abstract and how to connect it with the present case. I tried my best to put the relevant parts in concrete language, but I simply have no meaningful reply to question marks. No doubt you’re capable of thinking about it, just not right now. Perhaps some other time.

Hmmm indeed, Ophelia. It’d also be interesting to see which suspected socks haven’t posted at The Intersection since then, but a pain to figure out. (“Vindrisi” doesn’t appear to have, from a little googling; I’d have been shocked if that wasn’t a William sock.)

BTW, Bad Monkey at Greg Laden’s blog is pretty clearly a William sock, or someone physically near him. (The former being vastly more likely.)

As I mentioned over at The Buddha Is Not Serious, that makes this thread pretty interesting, with Greg dropping hints and “Bad Monkey” displaying ridiculous assholery and bravado:

I thought when the thread was new and still think that Bad Monkey has to be Sock.

Greg did check the IPs and it’s not an exact match, but it someplace geographically close to “William”‘s usual place. (Maybe a nearby coffee shop?)

I think we can consider that one confirmed.

(And the people who speculated that he would sock-puppet the discussion of his sock-puppeting should consider themselves proven right. I seem to recall somebody speculating that he’d come into the discussion, dissing YNH in general to distance himself and gain cred, but discounting the arguments about the sock puppeting. Bingo.)

Sorry, Ben, but what this thread is establishing is simply that you have a tin ear. The story was always simply implausible, incredible, whatever, at the time – for the sorts of reasons that Ophelia and SC are enunciating, which Ophelia has elaborated on before, and which I’ve also pointed at in the past in one place or another (though I’m lazier than Ophelia and have not tended to spell them out in such detail).

TJ is a lousy fiction writer. I always thought that there might have been some grain of truth behind the story (and there probably is a small grain there that he worked with: such “conservation events” do happen, TJ has probably had one or more arguments with forthright atheists, and so on), but the story as told was clearly a fabrication, or at best, if you want to make the distinction, a confabulation.

I sometimes wonder whether I addressed him [Mooney? OB] too harshly back then in October – maybe, I wonder in those moments, he would have been more responsive if I’d spelled out why the story is implausible on its face, in the way that some of us have been doing lately, rather than mocking him in the way I did for believing it. But franbkly, I think I’d have been wasting my time and would just have got caught up in a useless debate with socks and sycophants and well-meaning people with tin ears. After all, some people are still denying that the story is facially implausible even after all this (JJ Ramsey is still at it, for example, and plenty of others have been).

Actually, what amazes me about this whole episode is how many people seem to have tin ears and didn’t find the story facially implausible … or still don’t find it so. I suppose that makes Mooney a bit less culpable. Maybe it does take a certain level of skill to be able to spot this kind of bullshit – perhaps all those courses I did in literature and law helped me with something like this. Maybe. But I still don’t think it’s rocket science.

Just try imagining the people described (not just the scientists, also the Southern pastor who is totally cowed on his own turf) behaving as described and the story is obviously a very inexperienced person’s fantasy. And think about the language that TJ used, which involves a lot of straining for effect rather than being able to provide specific detail of what was said by whom. It would have been fun to cross-examine someone who came up with a witness statement written in these terms (in fact, no lawyer would allow a witness statement written in such a way to be tendered in evidence … it would obviously be ripped apart).

And it was also a naive blunder on TJ’s part to think that the scientists he was describing would interpret Jerry, PZ, and Richard in the simple-minded way he described. As I did say to Mooney at the time, that alone destroyed TJ’s credibility. The story would actually have sounded a bit more plausible if he’d made up something about a scientist who’d read Sam Harris … and then claimed that he was going in future to adopt an approach of “conversational intolerance”.

That would have been a more imaginative fictional move, and would have provided a more relevant motivation for the local Gnu Atheist. We do know that Harris sometimes writes in a way that can lend itself to extreme interpretations, whereas nothing ever written by Richard, Jerry, or PZ could remotely be interpreted by people who take it seriously in the way the scientists ostensibly interpreted it.

But really, nothing about that story added up, even in October. I’m still amazed that there are people who can’t see this.

After all, some people are still denying that the story is facially implausible even after all this (JJ Ramsey is still at it, for example, and plenty of others have been).

He is hilarious – I read something yesterday where he said (approximately) “hooray for people who offer actual evidence about sock puppets instead of just FUD speculation…” – by which he means, primarily, me; we had an argument about it at Laden’s. But I told him at the time – I had evidence but it was textual and hermeneutic and would involve endless futzing around at YNH to collect quotes and then endless typing to explain what was suspect, and I wasn’t about to waste all that time just to convince J J Ramsey. And I was, after all, right – I spotted the deception and he didn’t. I even did him the favor of saying that a “Ramsey” who commented there was probably a sock. But noooooooooooo; he’s complaining that I didn’t take four hours to explain to him why YNH was suspect. The guy is a riot.

Then again, maybe he’s just kicking sand in hopes of obscuring the fact that he took YNH seriously long, long, long after he should have known better. Maybe he’s just sad that he looks like a credulous idiot.

Hitch, why does it matter? Because whatsisname up there said some interesting things, which he warped into confused and wrongheaded things, and is getting wronger by the minute.

Also, I wanted, originally, to know what I could do better. Ophelia said some helpful things (literary tin ear), you said some helpful things (overly focused on convenient targets).

Why do I focus on it? Because this simply isn’t Fox News — it’s a forum made up of real people, concerned with real issues, real impressions. There is The Problem, which is Mooney’s journalistic competence and so on. (Solution: not competent.) And then there are other problems that are more basic but still important to some imperfect observers like myself — and others, Jean for instance.

I have to know specifically what I can do to protect myself from fraud in the future. I ask myself how I’d react if I were faced with the same thing tomorrow — and I don’t know the answer. I think that’s a problem. That’s why I want to talk about it, and why I think it’s perfectly legitimate to ask about it. I try to approach issues with optimal curiosity. That’s not being tricksy. It means I want to know more.

I like your comments at Intersection, by the way.

Athena — yes there’s etiquette — but then, there are incidents, and they’re not always that publicized. Take my example. Did you hear about E.O. Wilson’s talk at A Large Ontarian University and the crowd reaction to a questioner? Of course not. Why would you have heard about it, unless the victims were relatively central to your community?

Russell, quite possibly. And thanks for those points. The main one seems to be similar to what Hitch was getting at — that the villains were a bit too familiar with certain writers.

One problem in this case, Ben, was that TJ was just plain dishonest. I’ve learned over the years not to assume that pseudonymous people on the internet are honest. In most cases they are, but in a large minority of cases they are not. I don’t think you can apply something like a principle of charity to such a person’s testimony.

Even if you can establish that the person’s entire identity is not faked – which Mooney did at some point after “elevating” the story – there is much less pressure towards basic honesty if the person’s identity is kept secret from the public as an anonymous/pseudonymous source. You really need to investigate the story itself, not just that the person is who they claim to be (to you, in confidence).

The other thing is this. Even if TJ had not been deliberately lying, he could have been doing what people do all the time when they recount events, conversations, etc., that they observed and in which they have some kind of stake for making their case. I.e., he could have been exaggerating, confabulating, “interpreting”, distorting, suppressing information not in his interests, and so on. It’s sad but true that this happens all the time when people interpret, recall, and recount their experiences. We all do it to some extent, even if we’re basically honest and aware of the phenomenon. That’s one reason why witness testimony is worthless unless there has been an opportunity for someone who is objective or even hostile to go out and check it and then for someone to subject it to cross-examination.

Most people are honest enough not to feel comfortable telling blatant lies or claiming a better memory than they actually have once another version events is put to them in cross-examination during solemn courtroom proceedings, but they’ll say all sorts of things up to that point and seem confident about it.

Back in October, there was a possibility that TJ was not totally dishonest but “just” giving a wildly biased account, since this also happens, though in this case the story itself was so implausible on its face (for all the sorts of reasons that many of us have adduced) that outright dishonesty was likely. But there’s also the more general point that we shouldn’t trust anecdotes that have not been independently investigated and subjected to professional cross-examination. Even then, of course, falsities may slip through.

Mooney is not a lawyer, but he purports to be a journalist. He should know some of this. It was always going to be dangerous for him to rely on an anecdote from a stranger in the dramatic way he did, on such an important matter, even if it had possessed more facial plausibility.

This is tough, of course. It means that you should with a grain of salt even take things that I tell you about my own experiences. Perhaps, for all you know, the experiences I set out in my own essay in 50 Voices of Disbelief are distorted through my biases (though they’re at a level of generality where there’s less chance of sheer self-deception, e.g. I don’t think I’d misremember a general fact such as that I “lost my faith” when I was still vice-president of the local Evangelical Union, as opposed to recalling in an unbiased way who said what on a specific occasion).

To the extent that anything in that essay really depends on the accuracy of my account of any particular experiences or events that I saw around me, you’d be wise not to trust the account in isolation. As it happens, I don’t think anything in that essay, or much else that I write, does depend on my accuracy in recounting certain specific things that I saw, or specific conversations that I heard, and so one. That’s not usually how I argue. Still … be warned that even I am not entirely trustworthy on such things, despite wanting to be honest, feeling uncomfortable about lying, and being aware of the phenomenon discussed in the above paras. We’re all very imperfect interpreters, recallers, and recounters of events in which we’re involved.

I’m prepared to cut Mooney some slack for not knowing all of this. But as I said, he should know some of it. This is the kind of stuff that journalists should be aware of.

Oh, and to be clear: the above is largely my advice to Ben about not being fooled in general, even if a story sounds plausible. Sounding plausible is poor evidence of probable truth. But the particular story by TJ didn’t even sound plausible.

1) Learn about rhetorical fallacies (Walton, Eemeren & Grootendorst) and observe which posters use them and for what reason. For humor read Schopenhauer’s mock-guide to unfair debating, people really do use all these unfair tricks all the time!

2) Never elevate hearsay comments into feature blog posts. And I mean never unless it is completely harmless.

3) Be skeptical of anything that is emotionally colored

4) Be skeptical of anything that tries to associate a group with attributes

5) Be skeptical of confirmation. If people seek out to improve their position rather than explore what is going on.

6) Don’t guess intentions and be very skeptical of commenters who claim to be able to guess intentions

7) Reject labeling, generalizations, guilt by association.

8) Read primary sources and check claims made about primary sources.

9) Be skeptical of people who don’t quote primary sources and don’t trust people who have proven to quote out of context or misquote.

10) Check if a commenter is out to win or out to understand. Reject the first and listen to the second.

11) Listen to all sides of an argument and be suspicious if people try to silence a view that is sensibly presented.

12) Be suspicious if people cannot concede points that are obviously true.

13) Be suspicious if people cannot apologize without qualifications, or make false apologies like “if it offended you then I’m sorry”.

14) Be suspicious of false balance: “If side X did something then the other side must have done it too.” Especially if that false balance serves a partisan need.

15) Watch for partisanship and be suspicious of it.

16) Be suspicious if people only cite evidence supporting their case.

17) Make up your own minds based on the facts that you can check, but remain skeptical of facts you cannot check.

18) Someone who is honest and fair in disagreement is better than someone who is dishonest and unfair in agreement.

Russell, those are good thoughts related to testimony. You make three points: one about dishonesty, one about unconscious distortion, and one about the plausibility-probability connection. I want to say something about the first and third points to see what you think.

(I) You might say I’m an egalitarian about knowledge. I want to extend lots and lots of charity to people, because I think they deserve to be treated like epistemic peers until they prove otherwise.

You focus quite rightly on charity. That’s the nub of the issue. And you’d be right to think that there’s a kind of rose-colored glasses effect going on my end. Obviously in my case it led to an error — to fail to treat someone with the skepticism they deserved. So egalitarianism sounds naive.

But here’s the thing: once you start listening to all people equally, and treating all of them with seriousness and charity, you quickly come to understand who is a charlatan and who is not. Charity generates pride. Those who are in fact ignorant become proud of their ignorance (imagining it to be wisdom), and hence confident enough to express anger and conceit when confronted with information and questions they are unfamiliar with. On the other hand, when epistemic peers or betters are treated with that charity, they gain the confidence to be helpful and thoughtful instead of wary. So charity, in that way, is not just rose-colored glasses. It’s a kind of radioactive dye that sorts the fools from interesting people. A kind of “charity trap”, if you will.

So that’s what I want to hold onto if I can. In part I want to keep that rose-colored attitude because it gives me some sense that I get to trust some people, to some extent, even though I’ve never met them.

But for the charity trap to work, I can’t apply it unevenly, i.e., pseudonyms from Real Names. If I give charity to some and not others, then they start to look like they’re in arbitrary cliques. Discriminating between people on the basis of cliques messes up my radar. It leads me to suspect that I’ll mistreat interesting people and praise charlatans. I do tend to suspect that people with real names are less likely to be deceitful, but that can’t change how I train myself to think about the others.

(III) Just to clarify my view on the third point, where we may or may not disagree. I think that if our plausible story about some state of affairs (x) is the best explanation we have about (x), it’s fine to call (x) probable — not just fine, but in a sense obligatory. Of course we want to push the boundaries of our knowledge, collect new evidence that might undermine our plausible story, etc., in order to make an even better story. Still, at the start of the day, plausibility has to be taken as a place to start believing, and at the end of the day the most plausible story has to be taken seriously. Otherwise we end up with pessimistic meta-induction.

Holy Gnu! Were you there? (Of course, those were bloggers. We’re capable of anything. :P)

No, I wasn’t, and sorry if I gave that impression. Tho after all the posts & comments I read subsequently, I could easily come up with a false memory of it by now I should think…(<–that’s a joke, for the literalists here).

(One more commonality—G. Laden’s ability to insert himself into every traffic-drawing issue…)

***

(Hitch @ # 253:)

But we have no upset about that, because well it’s a “New Atheist”/Templeton critic being shouted down. Schermer did break academic etiquette as I see it…

Plus, that incident does not seem to have gone hitherto unremarked upon…

(Benjamin Nelson @ # 264:)

Athena — yes there’s etiquette — but then, there are incidents, and they’re not always that publicized. Take my example. Did you hear about E.O. Wilson’s talk at A Large Ontarian University and the crowd reaction to a questioner? Of course not. Why would you have heard about it, unless the victims were relatively central to your community?

Sad to say, E. O. Wilson is not nearly the lightening rod that the New Atheists are in the popular press. Or scientific press, for that matter. If the religious right were gunning for him, I’m rather certain we’d have heard quite a bit about it.

(Russell Blackford @ # 260:)

Just try imagining the people described (not just the scientists, also the Southern pastor who is totally cowed on his own turf) behaving as described and the story is obviously a very inexperienced person’s fantasy.

Exactly. And again—no subsequent explosion noted in the fundie propaganda machine, which would kill for stories like TJ’s.

(Benjamin Nelson @ # 264:)

Hitch, why does it matter? Because whatsisname up there said some interesting things, which he warped into confused and wrongheaded things, and is getting wronger by the minute.

I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and in many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about a little, but if I can’t figure it out, then I go to something else. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.

The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty damn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain. Now, we scientists are used to this, and we take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure, that it is possible to live and not know. But I don’t know whether everyone realizes this is true. Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question — to doubt — to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained.

“If there is any silver lining at all here, perhaps after working to find out the truth together about “Tom Johnson,” so-called “New Atheists” and “accommodationists” might feel the inclination to be just a little bit more civil and trusting towards one another.”

What kind of co-operation did Mr. Mooney do with Dr. Coyne, for example? Did he tell “Tom” to contact and apologize to those Gnus that he had slandered via Intersection?

To me it seems that Mooney had no interest in anything above. On the contrary, Mooney seemed to be so worried that a Gnu found out “Tom’s” identity that he had to make a special post about it.

In conclusion, I want to thank everyone who has tried to establish and to explain the truth here: “Johnson’s” adviser and Jerry Coyne; and also TB and Jean Kazez.

/sigh

It’s so cute how he totally ignores Oedipus who broke the whole situation in the first place, or people like Ophelia and Russell who were trying to establish the truth about the Tom Johnson situation a whole year ago.

Paul (#274); “It’s so cute how he totally ignores Oedipus who broke the whole situation in the first place, or people like Ophelia and Russell who were trying to establish the truth about the Tom Johnson situation a whole year ago.”

As far as I can tell, Broderick and Kazez did nothing to “establish and explain the truth”; they did, however, endorse — uncritically and enthusiastically, to use a well-(ab)used term — Mooney’s version of events. Oedipus and Coyne did what Mooney should have done in the first place: track the source and establish its veracity and bona fides.

On a case with several parallels, Sherrod plans to sue Breitbart for defamation. This indicates that blog journalism is starting to be held to the same standards as the real item. As it should, given its potential influence and rapidity/spread of reach.

Diane, maybe — there is probably a culture difference here in Canada. Some kinds of things make it to the Globe and Mail, some don’t. If you shut down a discussion before it begins — say, a debate on abortion — that gets publicity. People shouting somebody down in a concentrated way, doesn’t really. At least that’s my impression.

I give my humblest apologies about the gender error about whatsername.

Hamilton, then you must be an agnostic.

The skepticism that Feynman is expressing there, when applied consistently, makes it impossible for Dawkins to succeed in his most important arguments. Instead of inference to the best explanation, there’s a shrug of the shoulders, a “who’s to say?” stance. I don’t think this puts us in a very happy position, philosophically or rhetorically, though that’s all a pretty separate discussion.

I want to thank everyone who has tried to establish and to explain the truth here: “Johnson’s” adviser and Jerry Coyne; and also TB and Jean Kazez.

TB tried to establish and explain the truth here? TB is the one who repeatedly called me a liar for asking M&K a list of questions about their book. I don’t think TB has the slightest interest in the truth.

And Mooney is the one who deleted my comments (none of which called him or anyone a liar) and then simply banned me, but left TB’s comments repeatedly calling me a liar, in place. That’s Mooney’s interest in the truth. It’s just a tiny bit incomplete.

In fairness, TB did reveal the truth that Mooney did absolutely no checking of Tom Johnson before the Exhibit A post, a truth which Mooney was obfuscating (to the point that even Kazez didn’t realize that was the case). But somehow I don’t think that’s the “truth” that Mooney is thanking him for establishing, as Mooney could have easily done that himself.

At this point, you should not expect any unbiased person to take your accounts seriously until they are properly substantiated.

A case in point: You claimed to be “deceived (by “Tom Johnson”) about the story back in October 2009, and led to believe a falsehood.” But if you are honest enough, you need not be pointed out that there is an important distinction between

(a) being inadvertently and genuinely deceived, as you tried to depict in your post; and

(b) willingly overlooking and ignoring obvious weaknesses in that account supplied by Tom Johnson, as it “confirmed” favorably one of your views about your opponents.

Judging from your actions prior to this scandal, your enthusiasm in using this account to advance your already-heavily-criticized opinions, and your actively silencing people who pointed out the sheer implausibility of that account, you should at the very least try to produce stronger evidence to convince us that indeed (a) is the case.

Instead, you said:

“When I emailed him back in October about his story, “Johnson” identified himself as a graduate student at a major university, and described his academic publishing record as well as his in-depth involvement in science education, outreach, and conservation activities. He included his website, and told me where to find his CV. He included his phone number. He also provided the website of the conservation group he was involved with, and the names of the religious organizations involved in the events where supposed transgressions had occurred.”

Do I have to point out the obvious? Even if these “details” are all properly checked, they don’t constitute the said account or, for that matter, any account at all! Have you tried to establish a second witness? To contact the “victims”? Is it really that difficult for a (self-proclaimed) journalist?

It means that you should with a grain of salt even take things that I tell you about my own experiences. Perhaps, for all you know, the experiences I set out in my own essay in 50 Voices of Disbelief are distorted through my biases…

That’s very interesting to me. I don’t really like to write in the autobiograhpical vein, and I tend to avoid it. I wonder if that’s part of why – the verification problem.

What a joke Mooney’s latest is! Beyond what’s been cited above, he said:

“If there is any silver lining at all here, perhaps after working to find out the truth together about “Tom Johnson,” so-called “New Atheists” and “accommodationists” might feel the inclination to be just a little bit more civil and trusting towards one another. We do have a shared commitment to the truth, and a means of discerning it—and those have won out in this case. Let’s not forget that as we carry on the argument for science and reason in the future.”

What “accomodationist” put any honest, forthright effort into finding out the truth in this case? The truth was uncovered in spite of the “accomodationists,” not together with them!

Moreover, I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel less inclined “to be just a little bit more civil and trusting towards” Mooney. This episode (further) made a clown out of him.

And, finally, there are his poorly-written final two sentences. Translation: “Same team, same team! Stop attacking me!” Is he kidding? Where was that sentiment when he wrote that infamous chapter in Unscientific America?

As I’ve said, I was impressed by Jerry Coyne’s debunking of the story originally posted as a comment on this blog–and then regrettably elevated to greater prominence–by “Tom Johnson.”

He was impressed? Coyne simply did what Mooney should have done back in October prior to posting the story. This was at a minimum what’s required not just by basic journalistic standards but by fundamental human ethics when dealing with stories of this sort.

1) I am confident Coyne knows, as I do, “Johnson’s” real identity.

He’s vouching for Coyne? Hahahahaha.

And I, like Coyne, have been in dialogue with his adviser, whom I originally alerted to this situation back on July 7. So I too know that “Johnson’s” behavior is being investigated, and will be dealt with, through proper university channels.

But he didn’t see that as worthy of mentioning publicly.

2) I don’t think Johnson’s original story is true as described. More on this below.

Does he think it’s true in any way? More on this below.

3) As I’ve previously said, I should never have elevated Johnson’s original comment or called it an “exhibit.” I regret that I gave this story undue prominence, and I want to apologize to all who were affected by that action.

This is what he should have said, and left it at that. (Well, he should also apologize, as others have noted, for his response to the people who questioned the tale’s veracity, his elevating of it, and Kazez’s defense of his actions.

4) At the same time, it now looks like I was deceived by “Tom” in October when I contacted him to check things out.

You don’t say.

If I had been told the truth about his story at that time, the original comment would not have stood, and any issues would have been dealt with then, rather than now.

No kidding. The issues would also have been dealt with if he had investigated the story and, not finding evidence for it (andor finding even more against it) not posted it.

5) I think something probably did happen to “Johnson” to make him a fervent “accommodationist.”

This has to stop. Seriously. This has to stop. You are insinuating that Gnus actually did something to this character. You have no reason to think that. Stop saying things like this.

But whatever the nature of that experience or experiences,

What experience or experiences?

it is no justification for the trumped-up original story or for his other actions—which, as we now know, included creating multiple sock puppets over a long period of time and using them to nastily trash his “New Atheist” opponents.

We can’t know if “it” is “justification” or explanation for any behavior at all, since it’s pure smearing insinuation. Just stop it.

6) We are left with no reliable evidence of loud, boorish, confrontational public behavior by atheists at events with religious believers. Those who have problems with the “New Atheism” should not use this line of argument in their critiques, unless or until such evidence is produced.

Since this was his “Exhibit A,” then, he’s left with nothing as a basis for his critiques other than insinuation.

There is a bit more to say. To quote Jean Kazez (who has been sorely and unjustly abused online over this affair)

*eyeroll*

: “There’s one more thing that hasn’t been cleared up. What did the student put in an email to Chris Mooney in October 2009 to make him believe his story? Obviously it will be up to Chris to explain or not explain.”

The answer is that I believe I was deceived about the story back in October 2009, and led to believe a falsehood.

No kidding. Of course, this could have been avoided by investigating the story – not taking the word of someone he had no reason to trust – and listening to the people pointing out the problems with it rather than using their reasonable comments to make more insinuations about how vicious and threatening they were.

You will recall that “Johnson” originally claimed to have witnessed atheists at conservation events “mock the religious to their face, shout forced laughter at them, and call them ‘stupid,’ ‘ignorant’ and the like.” This is the story that caused such an uproar. And it was, crucially, the image of loud, public, and confrontational behavior that drew such attention. If Johnson had said something more minor—for instance, that a colleague at a conservation event had said something critical about religion to him privately, in a one-on-one fashion–it wouldn’t have been a big deal.

Um, indeed. It wouldn’t have been a deal at all. FFS. Nor would that – or people saying things critical of religion in any number of private or public contexts – remotely, to any sane human being, constitute a kernel of truth to Johnson’s story or something “happening to him” sufficient to turn him strongly against Gnus. It’s ridiculous to imply that it would. It needs to stop.

When I emailed him back in October about his story, “Johnson” identified himself as a graduate student at a major university, and described his academic publishing record as well as his in-depth involvement in science education, outreach, and conservation activities. He included his website, and told me where to find his CV. He included his phone number. He also provided the website of the conservation group he was involved with, and the names of the religious organizations involved in the events where supposed transgressions had occurred.

None of this corroborates the story itself. But this is worse, since we now know Mooney had been handed more than enough to investigate. (He could have requested it in any case, but he was given it.) And he continues to sideline the fact that he did nothing at all to check out Johnson’s identity prior to elevating the comment or to people (especially gillt) asking about it. This led TB to embarrass himself by publicly assuming there that Mooney had done so.

All the details about his identity were accurate. Despite a lie told later on about not being a graduate student—presumably because people were getting too close to his true identity–”Johnson” really was who he said he was. He could have seen precisely what he claimed to have seen.

SO FUCKING WHAT? That’s not corroboration of the story. My academic credentials can be checked online, I have more than one edu email, and I attend events all the time (some have involved religious groups). No one should reasonably accept any story I tell on the basis of that. What is wrong with these people?

But in my view, his story has now fallen apart.

You don’t say.

1) “Johnson” told me he’d witnessed this loud public atheist misbehavior at specific events, which he had attended, involving a Baptist group and an Episcopalian organization;

2) He said that the harshest comments he’d heard had been at outreach events with the Baptist group.

And for the love of Pete, the idea that Alabama Baptists are likely religious “moderates” is extremely questionable.

There’s no longer any reason to believe this.

There never was. This would be the case even if the story, despite indications, had somehow turned out to be true. There was no good reason to believe it. Ever.

First, “Johnson” is now known to be a completely unreliable witness.

He was always an unreliable witness. He was a random dude on the internet telling an implausible story.

On top of that, he has backed down from the original story, which claimed loud public confrontations—and we have one witness that refutes it regarding the Baptist group.

That’s the story. The original story is the story. You need to stop implying that there’s a less-serious true version if they do not have evidence for it. Stop doing this. It’s insinuating and it’s wrong.

More specifically:

1) In answers submitted to his adviser and shared with myself and Jerry Coyne, “Johnson” backed away from the original story, admitting there were no harsh statements about religion made “with a raised voice to a group.” He called the original story an “exaggeration.”

The original story was the story. Is there an unexaggerated version? Then tell it. What are you saying happened? What did Gnus do? Where is the evidence?

2) Regarding the Episcopalian organization, “Johnson” said he had mistakenly mentioned it to me as a place where atheist misbehavior had occurred.

Yeah, he was mistaken. Right.

Nothing of the sort described happened in connection with this group.

Or with the other group.Stop insinuating.

3) Regarding the Baptist group, “Johnson” also backed away from the claim that some sort of loud public confrontation had happened in connection with this organization. He did suggest that a “colleague” who had been with him at a 2008 event had made more minor critical remarks, but nothing on the scale originally described.

Holy shit. So Mooney sees this as a matter of degree. “Well, OK, he didn’t beat me up, break my arm, and steal my lunch money. But he said look at me funny.” This really shows how Mooney and the other faitheists, this really isn’t about tone but content. They want atheists to lay low and shut up.

Mooney, stop insinuating. If you’re not going to describe the remarks or the context in which and to whom they were made, then you have no business bringing this in. If you do, then offer it up and describe what you think is wrong with the behavior. Otherwise, stop insinuating.

Even if we were inclined believe this—and I really don’t believe anything at this point—it would not justify the much more dramatic claims of the original story.

No, it most certainly wouldn’t. So there’s zero point in mentioning it other than to keep alive the idea that there’s something there – that Gnus did something to bring on this dishonest and aggressive character’s actions and hatred, even if these were out of proportion.

4) Coyne has been in touch with this colleague, who says that nothing like what Johnson originally described occurred at the Baptist event; and I’ve also contacted this colleague to confirm the accuracy of Coyne’s assessment. In sum, it looks like there’s no there there regarding the Baptist group either—at least regarding loud, public confrontations.

No at least. There is no there there. Stop fucking insinuating. A colleague making critical remarks to him about religion, at such an event or otherwise, has nothing to do with the fabricated story. It’s nothing. There’s nothing objectionable about that for any reasonable person who isn’t unduly horrified by any criticism of religion. It’s not a less dramatic version of the same story. It’s on another planet. What he said happened did not happen. End of story.

In conclusion, I want to thank everyone who has tried to establish and to explain the truth here: “Johnson’s” adviser and Jerry Coyne; and also TB and Jean Kazez.

He’s got to be kidding.

I still have my philosophical and tactical problems with the “New Atheism.”

For which he has no basis, as he’s admitted above.

But I’m disturbed that someone on my “side” of this debate would do the things “Johnson” has done, painting a group as uncivil based on what is at best a serious exaggeration [!!!], while simultaneously spewing reams of incivility towards that group online, under multiple identities.

But for the last phrase, this is what Mooney has been doing for two years.

There is no excuse for such behavior–

Then stop behaving like that.

and moreover, there has been a very big cost in this case to a lot of people, both in time and in grief.

Yes. These people don’t include you, Mooney.

If there is any silver lining at all here, perhaps after working to find out the truth together about “Tom Johnson,”

What?

so-called “New Atheists” and “accommodationists” might feel the inclination to be just a little bit more civil and trusting towards one another.

I trust Mooney less with every thing he writes.

We do have a shared commitment to the truth,

No, we don’t. You have none, as this episode continues to demonstrate.

and a means of discerning it—and those have won out in this case.

Despite your efforts.

Let’s not forget that as we carry on the argument for science and reason in the future.

He also provided the website of the conservation group he was involved with, and the names of the religious organizations involved in the events where supposed transgressions had occurred.

Which means there is no good reason for not having contacted them immediately to get the non-TJ-anecdotal version of events. Not having contacted them, in fact, suggests strongly to me that CM feared they would tell him he had no Exhibit A.

In fairness, TB did reveal the truth that Mooney did absolutely no checking of Tom Johnson before the Exhibit A post, a truth which Mooney was obfuscating (to the point that even Kazez didn’t realize that was the case).

Well, it wasn’t really a revelation so much as a statement of what was already obvious from the “Exhibit A” thread and therefore extremely difficult to deny when confronted with the question directly. Further, when TJ revealed on the “Exhibit A” thread that TB was wrong, that Mooney hadn’t contacted him, TB scurried away from the thread. He and Mooney also let Kazez make this the issue, on which she argued wrongly for weeks at her blog ,without correcting her publicly or even privately. Nice.

I would like to ask Chris and Sheril to screen out attacks on me, because I really have had enough

This was in response to something ‘Hitch’ had posted in a comment there. Chris promptly EDITED it, and added:

Jean has taken a beating that I think is unjustified and it will not continue here.

Don’t know what Hitch said, but I’m willing to bet he didn’t call Jean a liar, repeatedly. As to the apology itself, it’s frankly more than I expected from him, but I agree with SC that the insinuations are really intolerable at this stage of the game.

To make what I think Jen Philips is pointing out explicit, Mooney has directly stated that be banned Ophelia for demanding that people calling her a bitch or a liar (Kwok mostly doing the former, TB doing plenty of the latter) on The Intersection (without ever justifying the “liar” claim) to have their posts removed. He considered banning her to be a “better solution”. Now he does the exact opposite, because it’s his BFF. It’s disgusting.

This has all moved on a lot, and I haven’t yet read Mooney’s post (this site was my first port of call on the internet this morning), so I’ll reply only briefly to something Ben said above.

First, I don’t think the concept of epistemic peers has much to do with this. It’s good to be open to learning things from unlikely sources, which I take to be Ben’s support, but it’s also good to approach those sources with our bullshit detectors switched on. I also don’t see why we need to have them amped up equally for each person we deal with and on every subject. For example, my friends have earned the right to my trust in a way that a random person on the internet has not. Second, I don’t think we should ever credence to something merely because it sounds plausible or because it is the best explanation of a phenomenon available (but perhaps the best of a bad bunch). As to the issues of best explanations (which isn’t really the issue with TJ), if X is the best available explanation of a phenomenon, and X is plausible in the sense that you see no particular reason to rule it out, you ought to take it seriously as a possibly-correct explanation, but you don’t yet have a reason for belief. If it’s important to have an explanation for the phenomenon concerned – so you’re not content to suspend judgment indefinitely – you have a reason to go out and see if you can get further evidence for X. But you don’t yet have a reason to believe X.

Russell, on your first point. There is a bit of that sense of democracy involved, yes, a degree of openness. But this is all about charity, too — and about what the bullshit detector is really made of. In a paragraph above, I outlined an argument that I called the “charity trap”. The charity trap just is my bullshit detector. Shine your good faith on a charlatan’s interesting opinions and — in many contexts — they crumble.

We’re not going to agree about your second point as things stand. I’d get into it, but the supporting arguments (apart from the support I’ve given so far) might seem exotic. But it’s extremely important and relevant, so I’m just going to flag it here with some earnestness, and let it rest.

Hitch posted what he said at Oedipus’s blog; here it is with adjacent sentences for context:

Further look at how TB is trying to paint my arguments now on the earlier comment thread. And how Jean used snide remarks against New Atheists throughout. I fear there is still a deep attitude problem with quite a few people who are part of this community.

Wo!! Anyone can see why that got edited out, while TB calling me a liar repeatedly is still there. Impressive!

Russell, on your first point. There is a bit of that sense of democracy involved, yes, a degree of openness. But this is all about charity, too — and about what the bullshit detector is really made of. In a paragraph above, I outlined an argument that I called the “charity trap”. The charity trap just is my bullshit detector. Shine your good faith on a charlatan’s interesting opinions and — in many contexts — they crumble.

We’re not going to agree about your second point as things stand. I’d get into it, but the supporting arguments (apart from the support I’ve given so far) might seem exotic. But it’s extremely important and relevant, so I’m just going to flag it here with some earnestness, and let it rest.